 In episode 47 of Mission: Impact, Carol and her guest, Julia Campbell discuss:
Named as a top thought leader and one to follow by Forbes and BizTech Magazine, Julia Campbell is a nonprofit digital consultant on a mission to make the digital world a better place. Host of the Nonprofit Nation podcast, she’s written two books for nonprofits on social media and storytelling, and her online courses, webinars, and talks have helped hundreds of nonprofits make the shift to digital thinking and raise more money online. You can learn more about Julia at www.jcsocialmarketing.com/blog Important Links and Resources:
Carol Hamilton: My guest today on Mission Impact is Julia Campbell. Julie and I talk about ethical storytelling – what it is and why it is so important for nonprofits to consider as they share stories of their impact, the misconceptions people have about social media and its place in your organization’s marketing mix, and why leveraging your owned marketing assets is key. Mission Impact is the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I am Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. Welcome, Julie. Welcome to the podcast. Julia Campbell: Thanks so much for having me, Carol. Carol: So I'd like to start each conversation with, what drew you to the work you do? What motivates you and what would you say is your why? Julia: I have always been very attracted to social justice work and social justice issues. And when I was in high school, I was involved. I couldn't even vote, but I was involved in the Clinton gore campaign. I started a recycling program at my high school. There was no recycling program. I just have always been very involved in activism and changing the world for the better. It sounds simplistic and cliche, but I really always have been. And then in college I volunteered at several different places in Boston. I went to school in Boston. And decided to enter the Peace Corps. So I was in the U.S. Peace Corps, for two and a half years after I left, , after I graduated from college. And that was where I really worked, started working with international NGOs and other organizations, and also started fundraising and truly understanding what it takes to make a difference in a culture because I feel like, I feel like with the Peace Corps, especially. I'm just speaking for myself, but I also feel like this is a, this is almost a, how people perceive us is we do have this white savior complex where we go into these countries and we think we're gonna change everything and make everything better. And what I really learned was that you have to. Immerse yourself in a culture and listen and hear the stories and truly understand what's going on. And you can't just say I'm gonna come in here and build a well and raise a ton of money for a well, and then leave. And that really opened my eyes because a lot of the NGOs were doing that. So when I got home, I thought I'm going to work. For nonprofits, but really help them understand how they do fundraising, how they do marketing and, and if it is maybe harmful to the communities that they're trying to serve. So I've worked in domestic violence. I've worked in international relations. I've worked in early childhood rape ISIS centers. I've pretty much run the gamut from large organizations. I worked at Boston university where. I graduated. And then I've worked in really small organizations with tiny budgets. And I think the work that the nonprofit sector does is so incredibly vital, no one else is gonna do it. Okay. The government can't do it or won't do it. The private sector won't do it. So we're filling this really important gap and solving these problems. And I just feel really strongly that people need to be advocating for the sector. And I'm just, I'm just such a strong advocate for it. Carol: I realized when I was looking at your bio that, that you were a returned Peace Corps volunteer, and I think you're probably at least the third guest that had that, that experience, that background, Julia: We always end up a nonprofit don't we? Carol: AmeriCorps, I really appreciate, the perspective that you got there helped you come around to how stories are used, and how they can be used for harm. There were a lot of common practices, , and I'm not a fundraising person, but, just observing, being in the sector in fundraising that now people are questioning and saying, that's really not exploited ethically. It's very exploitative, and so I'm curious about how you're helping organizations shift that and tell their story, but not take advantage of the people that they're actually trying to help. Julia: There's an entire. tidal wave in the sector right now. I think because younger people are starting to take the reins and younger generations do not put up with things that we have put up with in terms of exploitation or unethical storytelling, unethical practices, and they will call you out. what we learned in terms of practices and fundraising, when we all, I didn't study fundraising, but I read a ton of books. I took a lot of courses. I went to a lot of conferences. Mostly predominantly taught by white people. What I learned was you have to pull these heartstrings, you have to tell these sob stories. You have to start from a place of, of deficit. And it's called deficit thought basically. So then I started to study. I didn't feel very good about it. And I started to talk to other people. That we're doing fundraising work and saying, no, there are stories of hope and inspiration, and there are, they don't need to be tied in a bow. You don't need to say, oh, everything's, , grand and Mary Poppins ask. And it's just, it's not the reality, but still, if you think of the Sarah Locklin, the arms of the angels where she's singing and there's all these abused animals around her. And it's the shots of these dogs and cats. And it's always played on cable TV and they, the, as BCA pulled that ad because they did raise money from it initially. But if you're constantly doing that storytelling, it. It's not only unethical, but it's very fatiguing and people get numb to it and people, they wanna turn it off. They grab the remote. There are whole stories of people saying, oh, that ad came on and I had to like, actually leave the room and I couldn't deal with it anymore. The other thing is the. Giving the person that is sharing their story agency and making sure that they understand that this is not necessarily their defining moment. This is just something that happened to them. The terminology now has really shifted. And I think it's interesting where we don't say. And I'm still working on this and I'm not perfect as well. We don't say homeless person, we say a person experiencing homelessness. We don't say domestic violence survivor, we say person experiencing domestic violence or person living with a disability or person living with misuse and substance abuse. The terminology has changed. We don't make the experience that someone is having be the focal point of their whole life and it doesn't define them. And then there are, there are all sorts of interesting studies and all sorts of people talking about ethical storytelling using terms like at risk vault, vulnerable. I think you can still use marginalized populations. It's changing all the time. I think it's interesting. And to me, I don't think it's about canceling people or telling people they're wrong. If they use a certain term, it just opens up a conversation for something that I think is really interesting. And I think the sector does need to do a lot of introspection into how we might have, we shared all of these videos of kids in Africa with bellies descended and flies around their face. And if you look at the work of charity water in particular, one of my, one of my favorite charities, you can love them or hate them. Their whole perspective was we wanna make giving joyous. We wanna make people happy. We don't wanna guilt people into giving. We wanna make people excited and proud to be a part of what we're doing, and that's gonna help retain donors. And that's gonna help people continue to give, because if they're constantly guilted into giving, it's not good, so we wanna make people feel great about giving and feel proud about being part of the cause. Carol: One of the areas in addition to storytelling, or I guess it's not really in addition, it's a way to deliver a story. You work a lot with helping nonprofits with their social media and social media presence. And I feel like it's an area that can really trip people up. What would you say are some of the key things that people need to consider in pursuing a social media strategy? Julia: They need to consider how much time it truly takes to be successful. We need to get out of this mindset that it's free. So Carol, I could come to your house and give you a puppy for free. I mean, I don't know if you want a puppy, Carol: I got one of those free puppies and he cost me like $150, the first visit to the vet. Julia: Exactly. And then walking every day and feeding them. It's like, technically, maybe having a kid is not free because of the medical bills, but you could technically have a child in the middle of the woods for free, but then of course, there's so much upkeep there's upkeep, there's taking care of what you've created. So I always give the analogy of the puppy because. Yes, it sounds great on the surface. It's free, but your time is not free. Your effort, your energy, your bandwidth, none of that is free. And then also of course, as we know now to really get more visibility, you do have to play the ad game. Whether or not you think it's ethical to pay Facebook. I'm constantly going back and forth on that, but there's also lots of other platforms, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok. There's so many other platforms that we can explore. So what I do, and I'll just summarize it really quickly, I teach nonprofits the four pillars of social media and management because, you can't say I'm just gonna get on TikTok without doing all four of these things. And so something else is gonna have to come off your plate. So the first pillar is Listening, going there, being on let's just take TikTok. For example, being on TikTok, listening, watching, lurking around following people, seeing what. See, like taking webinars, reading blog posts really figuring out, okay, what's going on on this platform? What would my audience wanna see on this platform? That takes time. The second pillar is Content Creation. You have to create the content and you have to create it specifically for the platform. What you put on LinkedIn is not the same as what you're gonna put on YouTube, it's not the same as what you're gonna put on Instagram. So you need to have that content creation strategy specifically for the platform. And then the third pillar is Community Management. This is following people, looking at who's following you, going in, responding to comments, responding to your DMs, interacting in conversations, going into chats, being present because social media is a two-way street. You can't just use it as a billboard or a newspaper ad. Then the fourth pillar is Measurement and Analysis. Really taking time. This doesn't take three hours a week to do measurement analysis. If you're on one platform, you can quickly just do a scan and say, are we growing? Are we not growing? What posts were popular, which were not popular? What happened this week? Just do a scan of it. And then the key with pillar four is the reporting out, because what we don't wanna do is do our work in a vacuum. And we wanna report to the board. We wanna report to the staff. We wanna report to executive directors because we wanna show them this is actually work. A lot of them still think it's tweeting about what you had for lunch. I have never once tweeted about what I had for lunch ever. I probably have put a picture of a cappuccino or something on Instagram, but I've never done that. And that's the whole misconception that this is not an actual job. This doesn't require actual skill, but it really does. So every time you think about it, should I be on this platform? Should I adopt another platform? Are you doing those four pillars? Are you accomplishing those on the ones you're already on? And then if you're not, you get, you get those ducks in a row before you jump on another platform. Carol: When I was thinking about, just for my consulting practice, how I use social media and that the second, the first thing that you said of how much time do you have to. To give to it. I was like, okay, to be reasonable, I'm gonna pick one. I do LinkedIn, that's it. Julia: And LinkedIn is great for B2B. Like that's the best place to go for B2B. Carol: I just felt like the other places it's like probably not where people are hanging out. Julia: , but, and also actually it's a really good point. I just had. A podcast interview with my friend, Angela Pitter, who's a LinkedIn expert. And what she said was, you have to think about what people are doing on the platforms. Like you said, they're not really on Facebook looking for people to connect with professionally. They're hanging out with their friends, they're watching cat videos. They're doing fun things with friends and family. They're looking at the AB pictures. They're not necessarily using it the way people use LinkedIn. So I think that's smart. I think that's a very smart, strategic move. Carol: The only thing I practically go on Facebook for anymore is to see what picture I posted or what I posted eight years ago. Julia: I like the memories to look at, I like memories. I always wish that I could get off Facebook. I can't escape it, but I have Facebook groups that I run. So I can't. Right. Exactly. I can't officially leave. Exactly, exactly. But I do, I do spend a lot less time on it lately. Carol: And I think that for a long time I was just posting, right. Then I heard the phrase, the posting and ghosting, and that's a sense and ghosting. Then more recently just, I started doing the other things that you're talking about by actually getting in their comments ending on people's engaging and, it was more satisfying actually to, feel like you're, getting to know people that way. And actually, I think we connected originally cuz you had posted something about getting on podcasts and I was like, oh I've got one and we yeah. Talked to each other. Julia: That's what I love. It's like an actual LinkedIn memory Michelle received. Right. Really? Yeah. I posted that. I said I'm really interested in being on more podcasts this year. I have my own podcast. I'm just putting it out there. I had so many introductions. The LinkedIn community is so generous and so welcoming and just so happy to make connections with other people. I found it to be a much warmer community than Facebook. Carol: Which is ironic, right? Julia: It's ironic, but all of the CEOs, they make their own decisions about what they allow on the platform and what they don't and what they make go viral and what they don't. And I think Facebook, especially the more provocative, the more angry you are, the more negative you are. That's what is going viral and getting eyeballs. And that's why that's what we're seeing. Carol: One of the misconceptions that you talked about was that it's, well, it's just free. It's something that somebody can do on the side. What are some other misconceptions that people have about social media and their marketing strategies? Julia: I think there's, there's so many, one that I would say is that it can substitute for other things that are working. Social media is really the icing on the cake. It's really one of those things that people have definitely built their business on. But how I feel about it is I feel like you should be using it and leveraging it to bring people into other owned platforms. So your email list, maybe subscribing to your blog. Making a donation on your platform. You need to be consistently bringing people over to your owned platforms because social media is rented land. They can and will and do pull the rug out from under us very frequently. Do you remember when Facebook pages started? I will never Forget this cuz I was working at a nonprofit and my executive director called me and said we have to get a Facebook page. And I was on it, , because I had, I still had my college account, so I could still like get on it. I wasn't in college at the time, but I had an EDU address and I said, I don't know, like, is this a marketing place? Is, is all college kids, like just talking about stuff, but. She said, no, it's gonna be free and it's gonna be, it's gonna replace websites and it's gonna be a free way that we can talk to all of our fans and followers. People still think that. And to me, I think if we look at the data, you really can only reach a tiny percentage of your fans and followers. You use social media, not to say that if you have built a community, you should leave, but we need to be consistently bringing people over to our email list and our own. Properties where we can then build a deeper relationship with them. And also you can bring an assumption you've earned and its permission based on your email list. You can bring that email list anywhere you can change providers. If you don't like this one provider, you can communicate with these people. You can use that as huge leverage. And if you, about the way. We use email. It's a much more intimate experience than social media, because a lot of us are spending less time scrolling on social media, but we still all spend the majority of our day in our inbox. A lot of us. So to me, I do teach social media marketing, and I think it's a fantastic way to reach new audiences and younger audiences and to do fun things and experiment and build ambassadors and, and really, advertise events, things like that. But I don't want people to put all their eggs in that basket. We have to have a multi-channel digital marketing strategy that also includes our website search engine optimization is essential. People are searching. People will never stop using Google. Maybe they will. One day Google became so popular and huge. We want people to be able to find us where they are. So the other misconception that is really popular is that you have to be on all the platforms and you have to just cut and paste what you do across all the platform forms. What I've seen now, the trend is people are two platforms. Maybe now I need to start doing that because I need to really start focusing on two platforms. I feel like I spread myself so thin and I think a lot of us do, but the trend now, if you go to influencers websites, or if you go to brands that are just starting out, they're not gonna, they're not gonna see the 27 little logos on the bottom. You're gonna see Instagram probably, and maybe Twitter. and that might be it, or maybe YouTube. It depends if you're video based or visual based, or if you're text based, like LinkedIn is fantastic for B2B and consultants, but I do see the streamlining as being a big trend and the going all into one or two platforms as opposed to being everywhere at once. And I actually think that's a gift to nonprofits because we can't be expected to manage, unless you're a full-time social media person, which very few nonprofits have you cannot be expected to do those four pillars that I talked about on seven different platforms every week. It's just not feasible. Carol: You used a phrase, “your owned properties, social media is rented.” Can you say a little bit more about that? I don't know if people exactly get what you're saying there. Julia: Say you have an event in person or virtual, someone signs up for this event, permission based. you ask them to come. They come. Whether it's on Zoom, whether it's in-person, they give you their contact information. You now own that contact information and you have it. And if someone goes to your website, signs up for your email newsletter on your little form that I hope you have on your website, if someone subscribes to your blog, if you have that old school, like I have on my blog, WordPress. People can subscribe to your blog. Those are owned. You own those, and you can take those wherever you go. Sure. people will unsubscribe and move and email addresses will bounce. And that's not what I'm saying, but you do not own. You can't upload your Facebook fans. And this is a big problem. You can't get the contact information from people that donate to you on Facebook. So what I would do is just take these tools for what they are. Raise money on Facebook, raise money on Instagram. Don't worry about the contact information, but don't put all your eggs in that basket. You own your CRM, your database, you could switch a database and still bring all those contacts with you. Your direct mail list. You own that. So. To me. I want us to build our donor files, our supporter files using these tools. These amplifying tools are what I call them, but we can't just say, okay, we're not gonna have a website or an email list anymore because we have Facebook. Remember the day that Facebook went down the whole day? I was actually running a fundraising, paying for a client and we had. Multiple posts that were gonna go out. We were gonna do a Facebook live. We had Instagram posts and we had to completely cancel all of it because both platforms were down for the entire day. And we had no control over that. So we had to rely on email and we still did a lot. We did things like a YouTube live, but what I learned was that we really cannot rely on this. Like, this is just a good to have, a nice to have, but we can't put all of our effort and all of our eggs in this basket, because what if it went down, like, I'm just thinking of Giving Tuesday. If Facebook went down so many nonprofits would've lost thousands of dollars. So it's good to have, you need to have it, but focus on the other elements of your marketing program that you can, you have more control over? Carol: I remember when Facebook first started having the fundraisers, I think they were linking it, like it's your birthday, have a fundraiser. And so I did one and, I didn't realize at that point that the nonprofit that I did the fundraiser for wouldn't actually get any information about who donated. This is not helping them - it's helping them in the very short term. Julia: I kinda have a different perspective on that, so I don't mean to interrupt you but, the way I feel about Facebook fundraisers is yes, it's not a way to build your donor file long term. You're not gonna get major donors and plan givers and like to build this funnel, but. I'm sure that a lot of your friends and family had not heard of the nonprofit. So they were exposed to a brand new organization and they gave because of you, , they didn't necessarily give because they supported the organization they gave because of your birthday. And then honestly, I've given for birthday fundraisers. And then I have on my own, looked up the nonprofit later and got on their mailing list and maybe got more information. So I really see birthday fundraisers as marketing. It's like a marketing piece. Interesting. Because think of your friends on Facebook, they all saw that, and then their friends saw that, like, if I donate to my friend Melissa's birthday fundraiser, I post about it and then my friends and family see it. So the way I think about it is it's much more marketing based than fundraising based. And yeah, you're never gonna build your whole fundraising program on Facebook. And what's, what's also interesting though. about Facebook. They developed that because you remember the ALS ice bucket challenge. I can't remember what year that was. There was no donate button on Facebook. So what Mark Zuckerberg saw, because I do believe that he is like, actually a diabolical. Like, I don't know if he's evil, but I he's, he's like a genius and I'm not sure if it's in a good way, but what he saw was. Oh, everyone's donating, but they're going off of Facebook. So I wanna keep everybody on Facebook. I don't want people going to als.org and making a donation and then maybe not coming back to Facebook. So he created the donate button, really? Not out of the goodness of his heart. I mean, they know we, they say. But it was to keep us on the platform. So they wanna be in all encompassing, all, one ring to rule them all thing. And that's always been the way that they've been thinking about things. So when we think about the donate button, there are no fees involved. Fantastic. The reason we don't get the donor information is because it was never created for us. It was created so that we would stay on the platform. And so that, I mean, it's a bad user experience. It's. If you get my data and then you start spamming me or you start soliciting me again, that's bad for me. And I would blame Facebook. So if we look at it from a business perspective, it makes total sense not to give the data because it would be a bad move for them. This is also how we just have to look at social media. We can't have color glasses because we have to understand these are multi-billion dollar businesses and the answer to them. They're shareholders. So that was a little bring of their own, but I don't think people know how the donate button came about. I think they thought it was interesting. Oh, they wanna do something good for nonprofits? No, they just wanna keep you on the platform. It's really true. It's totally true. Yeah. I'm reading that amazing book. , I can't remember who it's by. It's all about Facebook. It came out a couple of years ago and it's really eye-opening and pretty, incredibly amazing. So I teach it, I love it. I think it has power and potential, but I always take things with a grain of salt when it comes to these platforms. ‘Cuz I just think, okay, shareholders, shareholders, they're businesses. They're businesses. They're not nonprofits like we are. Yeah. Carol: And I really appreciate the perspective of its amplification. It’s nice to have the extra, but it's not the core pieces. So one thing that's interesting when I'm, when I'm doing strategic planning with organizations, I feel like almost every group, one of the themes that comes out of all the conversations that I have with people is we're the best kept secret in blah, blah, blah Julia: Are we though? Carol: Now that I've heard it from so many different groups, I'm just curious, like how. I don't know, like, yes. How do you get over that? Is it important? Is it important for every group to be a household name? Julia: It's not possible. I don't think it's possible. That's true. I think of the organizations where I live, some of the really small organizations, like I live in a town of 4,000 people and if it's a food bank, it's a village technically. And if it's the library here, it's not going to appeal like 4,000. It's kind, probably the limit. Maybe people that have lived here and moved, but you're not gonna get 300,000 Facebook fans. It's just not going to happen because you are serving such a small community and it's such a targeted niche thing. So we have to really tamp down our extra, I think, unless we are. Dealing with a cause that's in the news all the time, unless we are a national organization, unless we're an international organization. So we have to understand that. Not only can we not reach everybody, probably the majority of people are not going to support what we do. And that's so hard to stomach for a lot of organizations that have. This passion, the curse of knowledge, they know that what they do is important. They know that it's life changing. They know that they're making a huge difference in a lot of different populations, but there are people that don't agree with food banks. There are people that don't agree with homeless shelters. There are people that don't agree with arts programs. I mean, there are people that just, they don't care, they don't, and that we can't change that. So to me, I just want people to focus on who you have now and love on them and love on them and appreciate them, encourage them to spread the word like you. Did Carol have a fundraiser, tell your friends and family. They are your best marketers. They are your absolute best ambassadors. And then try to find more like-minded people, but don't get hung up on being the best kept secret because how many people can get on the front page of the New York times, not many. Even the front page of your local newspaper, it's pretty rare. So I really encourage people and marketers, especially fundraisers to love on the people that are there, because what happens is we get so focused on. Acquiring new people and new names and new donors. And then we neglect the people we have. And I just actually, who did I just have on my podcast? Julie Edwards, she's a fundraiser consultant. She was talking, she was saying that donor retention. It's something like 20% or at least in the last couple of years. So we don't focus nearly enough on keeping the people we have. We're constantly focused on the next thing, the next thing. And I really think we should do more to retain and engage the people that have raised their hand and said, Hey, I really like you, rather than just say, okay, we're 10 more. The like, Carol: Cause you hear people like, oh, we're just preaching to the choir. Julia: And the choir's amazing. If you get the choir singing together in harmony, get more people to get them to join the choir. Like you need the choir. If you don't have the choir, what do you, well, I mean, I'm not a real church goer, but I would say if you don't have a choir, you don't have a church. Like if you don't have people. Attending the church and their job is really to get more people to come and to, to make it an exciting, fun thing to do to invite people to say, we're having this great party over here. Do you wanna come? Oh, you don't wanna come right now? You can't come. It's not a good time. That's fine. The door's always open or, Hey, you wanna come? Here's some more information on how you can come to this party. And I think the whole notion of. Like beating people over the head with information and forcing them. And like we would, bring it full circle, manipulating people, guilting people. That's just not a sustainable way. It's like, you need to inspire people, get them excited, and then they're gonna spread the gospel for staying on this metaphor. Carol: Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, overwhelming people with information. If I had a magic wand to change the nonprofit sector, I would somehow sum all the policy people and I would sit them down with the marketing people and, um, have the marketing people. help them simplify their message. So on all those advocacy emails that I get, I'm now saying this so that if a few people hear me, I want a, the highlight summary, like that has like a sentence behind it. Mm-hmm and then the second version is I want all the details. Then you can give me the version that the policy people will usually give. Yes, but I want to. Julia: This is called TLDR for “too long, didn't read.” Have you ever seen that? Oh my God. Well, so sometimes people write emails and it's TL:DR. Yep. I've seen that where it's like, this is the too long didn't read version and it's two sentences. And then it's the whole rest of the email. If you wanna read it, go ahead. Carol: I was talking to somebody who was interested in taking action on an item. Yeah. an issue. And she went to their website and she got so overwhelmed by the amount of information that was there. She just was paralyzed and didn't do anything. So it had exactly the opposite effect of what they wanted. Yes. Um, yeah, Julia: This gives me a good idea for a blog post. All right. Excellent. Yeah, and we don't need more information. We need people to synthesize information for us. Yeah. And tell us why it's important. So you and I, we can Google everything all day. Every day. We do not need more information or data or statistics. We do need someone to tell us what it means and why it's important. And I totally agree with you, too many emails are just listing the data, but not giving me any context. Carol: Yeah. And not giving me the simple “okay. And here's the next thing to do and I'm gonna help you do it.” So one of the things you talk about is future-proofing your organization. Can you say a little bit more about what you mean by that and how somebody might go about future-proofing? Julia: I talk a lot about specifically future-proofing your marketing strategy, but I do think the. Principles would apply to me, my main idea behind this is to build a community that is excited and inspired by what you do. And that will follow you anywhere because tools and trends come and go. There's a clubhouse. There's this idea that something's gonna come up. TikTok and Snapchat the tools are not what's important. And I think when people hear me talk about future-proofing and trends, they get excited and they're like, “oh, she's gonna talk about the five tools that you need.” But actually the tools are really the least important thing. It's if you understand your audience and truly understand what they want. And just like we just said, if you can really distill your message down. Into the why and not focus so much on the how also if you're adaptable. So we have to be more proactive. That's a huge thing that I teach and that I advocate for rather than simply reacting. To change or putting our head in the sand and saying we can't fundraise because of XYZ, or we can't do this. We can't do that. We can't do this. Trying to be as proactive as possible around the things that you can control or the things that you do have in your wheelhouse. So, we can't control things like the war in Ukraine, we can't control things. Like I remember George Floyd's murder and, and the black lives matter protests and clients of mine had fundraising campaigns. They had marketing campaigns going on. You just have to say something like, trust your gut and say, okay. We're gonna be quiet now, but then not be quiet forever. Don't think because the world is constantly changing. I mean, the only constant is really change. Don't think because the world is so in upheaval that you can't, you can't connect with people. And then another thing that I teach is just to communicate more than you think you need to, you are not annoying people. If you are sending out relevant interest in communications that people want to hear. So, yeah, you're annoying me. If you send me five emails that are written the exact same way, just ask me for money. But if you're communicating with me weekly or twice a month, about the impact of my donation, about the problem, about the solution that you're providing, about things that you're doing, what should I know, what do I need to know? If you are becoming a thought leader and a go-to resource, then the tools don't matter. And, and. The method of communication doesn't really matter. So I think the only way to future-proof yourself is to become a real go-to resource and thought leader in your industry, even if it's tiny and small and not quote unquote sexy. Although I don't believe there are no sexy causes. I hear that all the time. I call this sexy well, sexy is in the eye of the beholder. As we know, like what I think is sexy, you might not think it is sexy. So I think that it's in the eye of the beholder, but really being able to understand your audience is what's important to them and what motivates them. And then just constantly be proactive in giving that to your audience. That's really the only way we're gonna get through. The next, I don't know, 5, 10, 15, 20 years of total upheaval and change. Carol: Yeah. And that goes back to what you were saying before, really pay attention to the people who are already there. Who've already raised their hand. Who've already said they're interested. , yeah. Keep educating them. And, but it doesn't need to be a dissertation every time to give them the tools to spread the word, right. Like helping them be an ambassador. Yeah, I've been an ambassador and they don't, they're not necessarily, that's maybe somewhere where somehow it might actually be helpful, right? Like how do you, how would, what are some steps that you might be able to take to let other people know about the organization, et cetera. Julia: Right. If you can't. I see Global Citizen as a fantastic example. I get their emails and honestly, there's great articles and information, but it's always like here's a step I can take this month, tweet this out, sign this petition, put this on Facebook, it's usually very simple activities like that. They do fundraising campaigns, but it's very rare. It's mostly here's something small you can do to spread the word about this and to help us, reach more eyeballs and more people that are interested and does it make you feel good? I mean, they're targeting a very, very young audience actually. They target a lot of college students and like Gen Z who might not have the ability to make a donation. I'm thinking of my daughter, she's twelve. She doesn't have a bank account. So she's on TikTok, but she still elevates the voices of people due to her sharing commenting, that's a huge deal to that generation. So you're building it up for them to care about these causes. It's a long term game here, and then when they become my age and then they can actually make donations. Hopefully they will have remembered that experience that they had. So I just see it as playing, playing a really long term game. There's so many different generations that we have to interact with now. I mean, I think there's like seven distinct generations right now. So we can't. We can't ignore the people with the money, right? The boomers, but we can't ignore the people that are coming up and that are really active in digital natives and are excited to spread the word and talk about it. So we just need to have different approaches. I think for, for both ends. Carol: Yeah, absolutely. So at the end of each conversation, I like to ask a somewhat random icebreaker question. Yes. And so I pulled one out of my handy icebreaker question box. Yes. So if you could have any fictional character as your friend, who would you pick and why? Julia: Wow. That is such an amazing, amazing, amazing question. Okay. I don't wanna think too long about this because I have so many books that I love. Mm-hmm , oh, I just had it in my brain and I lost it. Well, Right now I'm reading. Well, first of all, I should probably say cat is from hunger games, cuz I'm obsessed with hunger games, but I'm not sure she'd be such a good friend. So I dunno if she'd be like a really fun person to hang out with. But I'm reading station 11 right now. I don't know if you've read that. Mm-hmm so good and it's a TV show on HBOMax. So I would have Kirsten, the main character. I believe I would love to hang out with her. I think she'd be fun. Carol: Yes. Yes. She is a really, really interesting character Julia: Yeah. It's cool. Just such an interesting experience and she's just very Shakespeare and I think it'd be cool. Carol: Yeah. And what was so interesting that, that book, and then the series was one of many. After some huge apocalypse story, but what I really appreciated about that one versus so many others, is that, sure there was some fighting between different groups of people, but that wasn't really the focus. Julia: It's not like walking dead where it's just a bunch of oh yeah. People fight all the time. Carol: And so many of the others, , after the apocalypse are always people fighting. And this one, I really felt like it was much more centered. People taking care of each other and I was that's what's actually gonna happen. Like yeah, sure. Julia: People are gonna fight and be terrified. It's not gonna be Mad Max. Carol: People are gonna take care of each other. Julia: Oh, can I add one more- Jo of Little Women, obviously. Oh yeah, you gotta hang out with Anne of Green Gables. Okay. Now I've got a million of them. Carol: We'll have a tea party with all of them. Julia: Have a dinner party. That would be amazing. There you go. That's a great, great question. Carol: Yeah. Yeah. So, what's coming up for you. What are you excited about, , in your work these days? Julia: Yay. I'm traveling a lot more for work and speaking. I am running my nonprofit social media summit again this year, November second and third. The registration page is not up yet, but we're really excited about that. I'm working with, , neon one CRM on. The third year of our summit, we did it in person in 2019, virtually last year. And we're doing a virtual this year again. , and my podcast, nonprofit nation, I absolutely love it. Some fantastic episodes and great guests coming up. So I just, I'm really, I'm feeling very positive for 20 me, 22. I really am. I think. I think it, I mean , I felt very positive about 20, 20 and 2021, but this year is our year. This is the year that it's gonna be. It's gonna be good, but I'm just feeling very, very positive and optimistic. Carol: Awesome. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much. It was great. Thanks Carol. Great having you on the podcast and really appreciated the conversation. Julia: Thank you so much anytime. Carol: I appreciated Julia’s point about the marketing assets that you own vs your presence on social media. Whatever following you cultivate on social media – you only have access to them to the extent the algorithm puts your stuff in front of them. I was talking to someone recently who said they post on LinkedIn to broadcast what they are up to. But that isn’t really the case – because the LinkedIn algorithm decides whether it puts your post in someone’s feed or not. When you send an email to your list, you know you are sending it directly to the person. They may not open it and read it – but at least you know you have sent it to them. So your subscriber list, your donor list – these are all important marketing and fundraising assets of your organization. I also appreciated her different take on Facebook fundraisers – that they actually serve a marketing purpose by making more people aware of an organization they may not have heard of before. So even though the organization is not getting the donor information from the fundraiser – you are still getting them a little money in the short term and some visibility. Her advice to ‘love on the people that are there’ reminded me of Stu Swineford’s comment about the value of the choir. Both are saying – care for the people who already support you. Give them tools and resources to be able to spread the word. Don’t assume they know how to be a good ambassador for your organization – make sure you give them the resources and time to practice sharing your good news. Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. You can find out how to connect with Julie, the full transcript of our conversation, as well as any links and resources mentioned during the show in the show notes at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. I want to thank Isabelle Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production as well as April Koester of 100 Ninjas for her production support. We want to hear from you! Take a minute to give us feedback or ask a question at missionimpactpodcast.com/feedback. Until next time!  In episode 45 of Mission: Impact, Carol and her guest, Carolyn Mozell discuss:
Guest Bio: Carolyn Mozell is the founder and CEO of Leaders Who Connect and Inspire LLC and knows firsthand how transformative it can be when leaders and employees treat each other with mutual respect, kindness, and a genuine desire to see each other succeed. Carolyn served in some of the highest levels of local government leadership for over 25 years. Rising from executive assistant to deputy chief, she also knows that leadership is a privilege. It can literally change someone’s life. She’s seen it happen and she’s made it happen. Now, Carolyn leverages her direct experience advising elected officials, cabinet-level leaders and activating diverse high-performing teams to help leaders in business, nonprofit organizations and government agencies do the same. Carolyn’s journey through leadership provided clear evidence that people do not leave companies, they leave bad bosses. That’s why she is dedicated to working with organizations to provide consulting, coaching and professional development programs to strengthen leadership, retain and attract good talent, and improve workplace culture through a lens of Emotional Intelligence. Carolyn is passionate about putting more kind leaders into the world. That’s why she helps leaders develop their emotional intelligence skills so that they can grow teams that work more collaboratively and employees who thrive and want to stay. She can be found facilitating conversations on leadership, emotional intelligence, and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) to coaching clients on how to build a better team by being a better boss. Clients appreciate Carolyn’s accumulated years of experience managing up, down, and across organizations as a former Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief and rely on her expertise to advise on what a positive workplace culture looks like for them, how to achieve it, and how to sustain it. Carolyn is a graduate of the University of Maryland College Park, BA African American Studies, Public Policy Concentration, a certified DISC Behavioral Assessment Practitioner and a certified Emotional Intelligence Practitioner. She is Vice President of Suited to Succeed and Dress for Success Greater Baltimore, member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), and host of the "Use Your Powers for Good with Carolyn Opher Mozell” podcast. She resides in Baltimore, Maryland with her husband, Dawyne and adopted cat, Eva. Important Links and Resources: Transcript: Carol Hamilton: My guest today on Mission Impact is Carolyn Mozell. Mission Impact is the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I’m Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. On this podcast we explore how to make your organization more effective and innovative. We dig into how to build organizational cultures where your work in the world is aligned with how you work together as staff, board members and volunteers, all of this is for the purpose of creating greater mission impact. Carolyn and I talk about why everyone in organizations need to consider what their sphere of influence is and think about how they can contribute to making it better, why it is so important to share back the results of any survey or assessment with the people who participated and then to act on the information, and why it’s important to know what is critical for your self care so you can manage the energy you bring to work and your colleagues. Before we jump into the conversation I want to let you know about a new thing that I am doing. I am hosting the Nonprofit Leadership Roundtable every couple months. During the Roundtable, you get to talk with your peers, share an opportunity or challenge you are having at work and get some peer coaching on the topic. The Roundtable is free and I host it on Zoom. The next one will be Thursday April 28, 2022. You can register on the Eventbrite site. We will post a link from the mission impact website. It would be great to see you there. Well, welcome Carolyn, it’s great to have you on the podcast. Carolyn Mozell: Thank you so much. Great to be here. So Carol: I like to start with a question around what drew you to the work that you're doing? What, what motivates you and what would you describe as your work? Carolyn: Well, having served in local city government for decades. And I, and I, when I say decades, that just sounds like something my parents would say, but yes, decades I saw like so many problems that were caused by a toxic workplace. And the impact that it had on employees, the leaders and even the customers. And then it made it very clear to me that when your workplace is sick, your employees are sick and it's a vicious cycle that leads to an unhealthy, unstable, and unproductive work environment for everyone. So I started solving this problem through my own leadership, because I felt like it doesn't have to be this way. I have no desire to lead in a way that promotes or fosters an unhealthy environment. And I started just being, as I grew in leadership, started being more intentional about my interactions with people that basically led to me consistently leading with empathy. Compassion. Integrity and accountability though. And that helped to inspire a work environment where people felt seen and heard and valued, all those things that we as humans like in the field. And at the same time, created an environment where the organization is, in this case, the agency, so the agency was productive. So, I began to understand that. It was a win-win for everyone. And even the constituents, now that the workforce is happy, when they're out. We're interacting with the community, we'd get, we would always get a lot of good feedback about how our people are nice and professional and polite and get the work done. So I began to really understand that it didn't have to be the other way, that you can lead with compassion. You can, with empathy, then on behalf to be a model of integrity. Because otherwise your employees don't trust you. And they'll, they won't do it. They won't do that. As you say, they'll do FAC. And then you know that, but I always, always, it was very clear about we are here for business purposes because we are all here and our job to work. For an outcome. But so that was my way of having some compassionate accountability with people, just so being there for them, but unders pairing them up to understand that You need it to also get the work done. So now I work with leaders in Munis municipalities and nonprofit organizations who want to break that vicious cycle that leads to something unhealthy, unstable, and unproductive. Carol: Yeah, and I so appreciate your statement around, when the workplace is sick, then, infects everyone else. Everyone else is sick too. And I love the turn of phrase, compassionate accountability, because it really brings both sides. Right. It's a ying yang of but we need both. And yeah. So your, your work now, you're really working with leaders. Foster those productive and healthy work cultures. And I think it's everything. It's something that everyone wants. A lot of people just don't know how they can contribute, how, or how they can make a change. And I really appreciate your story and that, you're in a big agency, you could, could look around and say, well, what can I do? But you decided, no, I have a sphere of influence. There are things. So there are ways that I can be there, ways that I can show up for my team and then the people that I'm working with. So, so how, when you're working with leaders, what are some steps that you take to help them see that, that they can start doing to cultivate that healthier work environment. Carolyn: First I, I really always say that I consult and then I coach interactively because at first you need to understand you, you have to. Make sure that you are willing to uncover your blind spots that may be leading to this environment and be willing to have the blind spots exposed, of people that maybe you have a higher regard for et cetera, that the blind spots are being uncovered. Are going to eventually lead to that healthy workforce. So, be willing to uncut, get data to uncover blind spots. The first thing I always do is to have either an insight survey or assessments behavioral or, or emotional intelligence assessments to go in and just understand where people are so that we know where we're starting and get some baseline data. And then using that information to align that with your goals and all, and the most important thing is, involving people who are directly impacted in that process and whatever the recommendations will be in the process so that you're not faced with a situation where when you're done. People are like, I don't agree with that or I'm not doing that, you know? And I found that like having a representative, so to speak of all levels of the organization helps to give that insight more a more well-rounded insight so that even if like, 100% of the people are not going to agree all of the time, but at least you will get the representation from all of the levels of your organization to make sure that you are incorporating those diverse voices. And then after that, then it's time to always say you got, you gotta apply the results timely, just not be worse than going through, getting people to answer surveys or getting people to take assessments. And then. having meetings and then not doing anything with the information. Yeah, that's the same as, having, we talked about having a workflow committee or a task force and, you just sit the document on the shelf. And so I always encourage leaders to keep the communication consistent. And reliable because humans again, we all like reliability, and it's the same as businesses, businesses like reliability and, in humans like reliability. So, having people to know that, they're going to hear about the survey update or the next step. On Fridays from their leadership, is what I try to encourage them to do to establish some level of consistent communication. And it's all in one case, they would do it at their Monday staff meeting, but just having, keeping people engaged and letting them know that the process is resulting in some action and action that will be. Carol: Yeah, I really appreciate it. It's so important that when you ask people to take their time to contribute their thoughts and, and answer a survey or do anything like that, that, that you do complete that circle and that a group of people looks at it synthesizes it, but that synthesis then goes out, back out to the folks who originally were asked the question so that they can, can see that they were heard. And, and yeah, that's, that's so important. So can you say a little bit about this, because you also do some executive coaching with leaders? Can you say a little bit more about what that is and, and how you work with clients in that situation? Yeah. Carolyn: So the local clients that I've been working with so far are either in like a big government or a smaller non-profit. And when I have, but they're, they have been mid to senior level executives and they are, they, they are at a point in their. Career where they want to understand how to gain, influence to expand and their leadership. And so what I do, I help them with understanding how to interact better to gain that influence and using it again on like, improving their emotional intelligence and using disc assessments to help them understand how to, how they, how they are communicating. And if they're, if they're communicating what they intend to communicate or is, are people hearing differently than what they are trying to say. And, I learned that, through my leadership process, that was really important. And gaining influences, they'll always used to say, say what you mean and mean what you say, and, but you gotta be careful of what you're saying, you know? And so it's a whole, it's a whole self-awareness piece, as well as understanding how to communicate with different types of people. Carol: Yeah. Sometimes those truisms are true. Carolyn: Yeah. Carol: So when folks are trying, you talked about self-awareness, you talked about being aware of how you're communicating with folks, is what you're intending to say, matching up with how people are hearing it. What are some other ways that leaders can start to be more intentional about growing their influence? Carolyn: Well, they can be careful and intentional about the energy that you embrace into a conversation. The energy that you're bringing into a room, the energy that you're bringing into a meeting, it's always I would say you can't change the reaction of the other person, but you can always, always control how you respond to that other person. And so I always make sure that they are intentional about responding and not reacting and understanding what that means for them. And, if you know that. John, every quarter is gonna trigger you for some, will be because of what he's going to say or do in a meeting then, prepare yourself for that because you can't necessarily control. You can only control him to a certain extent, if you're directly you have that. If he started direct reports, then there's always that coaching conversation about, would be appropriate this and what he's doing, if there's anything inappropriate, but John, as his own personality, So, you, he, John just may communicate in a way that's different from how you communicate, but as a leader, you should just be, you need to be aware of that so that you can. The most productive output from John all while making sure that he feels seen, heard and valued. So, it's, it's, it all works. So if the change is believed, interchange, it bleeds together and, having empathy, having empathetic leadership can be exhausting. So always encourage leaders to make sure that they're taking care of themselves and that they are understanding what their balance means. I always see a lot of people say, oh, there's no such thing as balance, but we all have our own personal balance. There's no one definition for what balance means for you or for me or anyone else. Everyone has their own. Version of what balance means to them, but by whatever priorities they have in their life. So I always make sure that leaders take care, take, and have a routine to take care of themselves, whether it's meditation, whether it's, getting a good night's sleep, whether it's, time-blocking for your calendar to make sure that you are incorporating. Priorities that are going to make your life feel like you are living. As well as, having a professional life, because I know like when I worked at city hall, it just felt like my, like, it could be 24 hours, that because in the city there was always something going on. And so you just felt all absorbed in all of that. So I had to understand how to take care of myself so that I can go in and lead the people that I had to lead in, in a productive way. And show up with energy and show up, with my best version of myself, to encourage them to bring their best version of themselves. Carol: Yeah. All of those things and, and, ideally you get, you can meditate and go to get a good night's sleep and get some exercise and have some time blocking and do all those things to create those guardrails that really. Help you stay centered so that you can show up with empathy for people. So, yeah, but it takes a lot of practice. And, then I think also for me obviously we all want to be more, we're, we're aspiring to be less reactive, more proactive and then things catch up. Right. And we get triggered. And so how do you recover from that and repair what might've happened? Carolyn: Well, first as always, it goes back around to just being aware of those things about yourself and repairing those things. Again, different for everyone. Repairing could be that you are you, that you need to turn off your email at a certain time or that you need to, they'll schedule looking at your email at a certain time. It depends on what your circumstances are, but recovering are some of those things that you mentioned, exercising. I worked for a mayor who. That was her recovery exercise. We took exercising out of her schedule one, one time because of a conflict and it was a horrible afternoon for everyone. She could not show up as her best self. I tease about that all the time. I'm like, oh, I told her it's her executive assistant at the time. Please do not take exercise out of her schedule because she was just a barrel the rest of the day. And so, but that made me really understand that, being a leader. It's exhausting because you are trying to solve a lot of different problems and still have a life of your own. So you do have to have things in place to recover, like, going exercise, taking a walk, getting fresh air, being out in nature. And I learned over the summer, I've been very. Intentional about just trying different things over the last year and a half. And I, and I came across a coach who talked about grounding yourself and going and standing on like in the grass on seeing it with no shoes on and how that just does something to the body and makes you feel refreshed. And I said, let me try that. So over the summer I did that. It was awesome. I went out and stood on the patio and I just stood there. The neighbors probably didn't understand what was happening. I'm standing there in my bare feet and in the middle of the patio, not really looking at anything, eyes closing up, just absorbing all of the energy. And it was really refreshing because over this last year and a half or so leaders have had to rethink everything about how they're leading themselves and So, I tried to be very intentional and open about learning new things. Carol: I love that. Cause I think of lots of meditations where I've had, where the instruction has been imagined, the, or, feel the ground that you're you're on and imagine how you're connected to the earth, but actually going out. Standing with bare feet and, in grass or wherever you can to really, really feel that. Yeah. That's interesting. What other, what other things have you tried out in this last year and a half of experimentation? Carolyn: A night routine. So I had, and this was a, this was mostly actually recently I had a young woman on my podcast. You should power, so good. And she is, she dealt, she was a healer and a coach, a healing coach. And so she talked about the importance of a night routine to get sleep that would help to revive you and re-energize you and all, and some of the things she said, I tried and I was like, oh my gosh, I feel so good. And it was, there were several things to do, but you don't really understand the impact unless you're consistent with them. And so for me, I took my shower at night and she suggested like, take a nice hot shower and have the water just run on your phone. And that disliked does something. She has all her terms. So then you can check the podcast, but it does something to your body. And, it just promotes some sleep stuff for lack of a better term. Because that's not my area. And then, doing things that are going to make your next day more productive. So for me, getting my clothes out the night before now for me, I couldn't understand why I had so much anxiety around this when I wasn't leaving the house. Really zoom calls. Yes. But, then I would like recordings and stuff for some of my content. And so I had so much anxiety around, like, what am I going to wear? And then, I spend half the morning, like finding something and then. didn't want to iron. So I just really, so I, what I decided to do was like one Sunday. If I needed to put the clothes out and if I needed to iron something, iron it, then and sell them. That's taken care of, check it out off my list as I have something to do in the morning. So, she shows you how, like on the, on the back of your feet, the different pressure points that help to relax you. And so, I try some of that and that scene. To spark some type of relaxation for me and using an IMS to blackout the light. Now I'm married and my husband likes the TV on all night, all night. And, I grew up like that, but then I started somewhere along the way, I didn't have to have the television on. So having the eye covers really helped me to just get into my, getting to sleep mode and, oh, one important thing that almost everybody probably has. Well, if you have an iPhone, turn it on that night mode where the screen goes into more of a blue demo mode because she talked about getting yourself. Prepare for sleep and remove yourself from the light of the television of your phone and all that. But you're the fluorescent lights above you. And getting blue light glasses to help with that. I haven't purchased those yet, but that's one thing that I'm going to try. So there are like so many ways, so. Help yourself, but a lot of times we just struggle with getting started. So I, I've, I've gotten into a mindset where I make it uncomplicated and I just take the best next step. Carol: The best next step. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's so much emphasis on creating a good morning routine, but people forget about the night routine and how you kind of, you, you, you think about it with kids, right? Like what's their routine for getting them to bed so that they can get to sleep well, we're just grown up kids. So, yeah, that's awesome. So what are some of the common challenges that you see leaders facing as you work with? Carolyn: One of the biggest ones is dealing with people who are like bringing their personal problems to work and just dealing, not how to manage themselves personally in the workplace. And so they bring all their stresses and then they, that shows up in the work that they're doing. How they're interacting with people. And so helping people to manage that piece of their participation in the workforce and workplace is one thing. And then also helping people to. Understand how to work collaboratively, like in groups, without it feeling like a competition. And so, one of the things that I did with a client, I have. After we did the survey process, we put together a task force that I facilitated and it had various generations of people, diverse people in all respects. And so one of the things I laid out for them in the beginning is that as I always say, we're gonna, let's w we're going to jointly come up with our rules of engagement. And, so we listed about five things, about listening, respecting conversations, respecting differences, in opinion a grade to disagree, so, we, we just, we, we, we covered things that. We agreed to want to gather so that, as we were moving forward, the process didn't seem offensive or unfair or anything to any, any person in particular. And that, we were all, we just all remember when our rules of engagement were that we agreed. And we're able to have a very productive meeting with a very productive outcome. We got through the recommended survey recommendations and like two sessions. So the third session was just a tweak, But we were able to substantially get the work done and all, and everyone was really happy. And, those are the kinds of things that really make my work feel very gratifying knowing that I've gotten people. A diverse people able to work together for a common goal to achieve a common goal. Carol: Yeah. Those, those having a conversation about those rules of engagement and how are we going to work together? And what do each of those things mean? Like what does respect mean to you? How does that show up? How do you demonstrate it? What, how am I going to know or what, what demonstrates to me that, that you're respecting me or listening to me or effectively communicating yeah, that, that work it, you know infrequently take the time to do it. And that feels like, oh, it's a big conversation, but they can use that, meeting after meeting to work productively together. And it's, it's just so, so helpful. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Carolyn: Let's say one of the, one of the biggest benefits of that process that I just, was some of the middle management leaders. Stepping up to like continue the pro content, continue in the process and bring. And, like, because some of the work is included, the next steps included. We outlined the five goals that we would want to work on. And then the next step was like assigning resources to those at those arm recommendations. So, we had people step up to say, all right, I'll take this one. And then I'll go talk to this department and explain to them what this work has been about. And I understand how the capacity is for completing the work and getting this goal completed. And so it was really awesome to say, those leaders, like just raising their hands, like if there was no. No. Yeah. Like sometimes you'll, you'll say, well, who's going to do this. And then you hear pins dropping and all kinds of stuff. And, but then this case, it was like, I'll take this one. I'll take that one. I'll take this one. So, I was like, it's done. Our work is done. Carol: Leaders who built leaders. They go, they go. Yeah. And the other thing you talked about in terms of people bringing their personal challenges into work. And I think that, it's gotten even more so, muddied with, with so many people working from home and us literally, being on video calls where you can see into people's homes. And obviously some people have. Manage that by figuring out how to, or having computers that can manage a virtual background or a blind thing, I've tried them. But for some reason, the, the, the Whatever it is with my hair. Like I disappear, like, so I can't use them. So I'm like, okay, here I am. This is, this is what's behind me. But yeah, I wonder what you've seen in the last, almost two years now for leaders that I feel like there's been a call to be more empathetic with everything that people are dealing with. And at the same time how, helping people set those bands. Carolyn: Yes. And oh, I am like, this pandemic has caused us to have to reef. And everything, everything, we are just, at anything that you thought, anything that you thought about leadership, post I made free COBIT, has gotten twisted and turned and changed like ever. But the bottom line is that employers want to grow a workforce where employees don't leave and employees want to have a workplace where they can grow professionally and financially. So understanding that. Sprinkle some empathy around all of the challenges that people are experiencing. I've found that the best thing that leaders have been able to do in this environment is to just really exercise, flexibility, responsible flexibility. Now, again, Yeah, they have that compassionate accountability piece where we are here for the business purpose. But understanding that, your workforce and your poor employees are people who are the engines of your organization. If they all go away, you have no organism. So, so, so leaders have had to really be more flexible and especially the work from home piece and, and understanding how that impacts the work and, and. Wherever possible, making the environment flexible enough that a person could work from home or do a hybrid situation. But just making things more flexible and understanding that with the knowledge of knowing, everyone on the same page about the work still has to get done. Carol: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So you encourage everyone to put a little more kindness into the world. What, what inspired you to put that front and center? And I'm, I'm also curious what, how you put more kindness into the world. Carolyn: So, so. What inspired me to, to create the podcast, use your powers for good that inspires leaders, managers, and supervisors, to put more kindness into the world, because through my experience, I saw how leaders build other leaders. And though that could go, you could be building positive leaders or negative leaders. And I haven't experienced back in like the late eighties. But one of my first jobs out of college, And I worked at the us chamber of commerce in the manager director there. She said I am right, I don't expect you to be in this job for more than three years. It was as a staff assistant. She said, I will expect you to be here for more than three years. And I was like, what job is this? I can't say more than three years. That was the whole, you go to a place and you retire. So I'm like, what the heck? So but what she said after that was, I'm going to give you everything. You need to be sunsetted. So it's up to you to use the tools that I gave you, the experiences that I gave you the opportunities that are put in front of you to be successful. And she did, and she gave me, she put me in front of people and, I was 23, 24 years old. Put me in. People that I would never think that would be a front of and situations, but she gave me the tools and, she allowed me to go to different trainings and, and to hone how to interact with higher level people at the time I considered. Because they weren't like chamber presidents from around the country. And so, I've never forgotten that and I never forgot that. And so that created a lead. And myself that paid that forward to other leaders, to other people that I was, I was developing into leaders. And so I have always led with a, so this is how I put my kindness into the world. I always lead. And whether it's in the workplace or in the personal and personal life, always lead in a way where, someone is left with an impression that is so. Heartwarming or inspiring that they feel compelled and inspired to do kindness for someone else, be kind to someone else or exhibit that kindness for someone else. And that really was like really I saw that in my recent work when I was in city hall. creating the people that were directly sat directly supervise, they went on to become leaders who, understood how to place empathy in their leadership, without it feeling like they were like gonna be a pushover and all that, because empathy, when people hear that, they think, oh, you're just a soft manager. I was very clear that we are here for business purposes, but I understand your situation. So let's solve the problem together. And so that you can get a productive outcome. We can still get the work done, but then it leaves the person. I gained a lot of loyalty through leading in that way. And so people showed up for me and I, I will never forget that. And I want all leaders to have that feeling. So that's why I want to inspire leaders, managers, and supervisors that put more kindness in the world through their leader. Carol: Yeah. And I love that story that you tell because it demonstrates a lot of different things. One, she knew the reality that this was an entry-level job that, if, if you were, if she was doing things right, you weren't going to stay in. Cause you were going to grow and learn algebra. But the trust that she also put in you to say, let's, let's have you go here and there and do these different things. And the fact that you're telling your story, years later, it's pretty amazing. And then the ripple effects that you're talking about makes me think of it, is it the Maya Angelou quote of, my favorite. Yeah, we'll forget what you say, but we’ll remember how you made them feel and as a recovering, no, at all. I try to remind myself that every day. Carolyn: I forgot that that's one of the quotes that I always have in all of my coaching that people are going to ever re they may remember. They won't remember what you did, but they will remember how you made them feel. And that's it like, yo, that's exactly what happened from an experience and the eighties, So telling that story, it still feels that emotion around that. Carol: Right, right. Then the way that she trusted you. Yeah. That's awesome. So one thing that I like to do at the end of my podcasts is ask one random icebreaker question that I pull out of a box. So the one for you today is in what way do you feel your childhood was happier than most? People's? Carolyn: I didn't know we were poor. I never, I never knew we were living paycheck to paycheck. Until I went to high school and I went to for those who are involved, the Baltimore area, Western high school, an all girls high school and, and you're seeing a year, they're like, like they have so many activities that no one, everything required. They do everything that is required like a white gown or something. Outfit. And so I did not know that we did not have the resources to support that until I got to that time in my life. And my parents, my parents were awesome. They were awesome. But they, they, they, said it in a compassionate way, but they were pretty much like we don't have the money. And they said it in such a compassionate way that that just led me to go and get my first job in worry Rogers and raise my own money to do all this stuff. So then they wouldn't have the burden of doing that. And so, I always remember that, I didn't know, we were living paycheck to paycheck. I had everything I needed. And some of what I wanted and I think it didn't help that I wasn't a very needy child. So, I had everything I needed, some of what I wanted, we ate, I was, I was. A little baby, but my brother who was next in line to up for me was 14 years older. So they were like, my brothers, brother, and sisters were like stairsteps. And then I came like 14 years later. So have another story behind that. I'll go into that. But so I said, boys are pretty spread out too, so yeah, so I was like an only child. because they were pretty much not paying me any attention because they were teenagers. And then either the house, by the time I really got to any like, like elementary school. So, we ate together, my parents and I, we ate dinner together. I watched after school special holes. and I just didn't need anything. And, I felt safe and protected. So I never knew we were poor until high school. Carol: All right. Well, thank you so much. So what are you excited about? What's coming up next for you? Carolyn: Oh, wow. So I am going to be rebranding my podcast. Well, it's starting now. So anyone who wants to like, come on the podcast, I'm starting to do, I was doing all audio. So now I'm doing visuals because what I learned is like, people love seeing other people and I get, I got so much, I get so much feedback and people engage when they are, when they see me. So if anyone's interested in being a guest on the podcast, please reach out to me. Subscribe to my mailing list. All of this can be found on my website at www dot leaders who connect and inspire. And if you are looking for. The speaker or moderator I've recently met. I didn't know. You have plans. I plan. So who knew I was like a speaker or a moderator? I didn't. So recently I got asked to be a speaker and my reader at the Maryland association of counties con on winter conference. And I loved it. I did. That was one of those things that I did not know I would love, but I had done another event prior to that and I got my feet wet and now I'm just like, I love it. So, those are some of the things that I want to just explore more of, and especially in municipalities, because those are the people that I understand most and that I feel like, my experience. Yeah. Help inspire and lead to leaders, building other and other better leaders in. So the solos, those are some of the things I have coming up But I really look forward to connecting hopefully with anyone who wants to oh, one other thing. So I've been working with folks who, or having conversations with folks who are working in DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. And, those are, those things are still evolving. And one of the things that has come up. Especially as a person who had to build the infrastructure for the city's program, that the law was passed and then had to be implemented. So I was one of them, I was the deputy that implemented it. And so. One of the things that came up for me as I left that process and started looking at how others were approaching it is the using emotional intelligence in that process. Because if I had to do it over again, that's where I'm going to start it with, like getting people prepared for all of these uncomfortable emotional conversations and helping them to understand how to interact with that. If anyone needs any, if anyone is in that space and is thinking that is something that they would be interested in exploring, I'm doing information gathering, especially what that means for municipalities and leaders. Carol: That's awesome. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Carolyn: You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Carol: I appreciated Carolyn’s comment about the best next step. Or I might make a slight edit – to a good next step. You may not really know whether it is best or not. But that approach pulls us out of trying to game out all the possibilities and pretend we can predict the future. It keeps us in action – just make one small choice about your next good step and it keeps you out of analysis paralysis. I also appreciated Carolyn’s perspective on being a leader who builds leaders. Confident leaders want to invest in those around them and contribute to their growth, learning and success. And this may mean they leave your team. Wish them well and know that by investing in them, your support will continue to have a ripple effect as they contribute in their next role. It can be challenging in the short term as you have to fill a vacancy – but you are contributing to the long term. And your mission of your organization is likely part of a wider movement – your investing in your teammates and what they go on to accomplish will likely contribute to that wider movement you care about. Be generous. Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. You can find out how to connect with Carolyn, her full bio, the transcript of our conversation, as well as any links and resources mentioned during the show in the show notes at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. I want to thank Isabelle Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production as well as April Koester of 100 Ninjas for her production support. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with a colleague or friend. We appreciate you helping us get the word out. The easiest way to do that is to share pod.link/missionimpact – then your colleague can access the podcast on their preferred platform. Thanks again for your support. Until next time!  In episode 45 of Mission: Impact, Carol and her guest, Stu Swineford discuss:
If you know me, you’ll know I’m never one to shy away from an opportunity to grow and take on new challenges. For example, I started my marketing career as a copywriter and ad man. But one day, when my graphic designer colleague didn’t show up for work, I evolved (very quickly) into a designer. After all, I was the only other person in the building who knew how to turn on the Mac. Since then, I’ve performed virtually every role in the digital marketing production lifecycle – from strategy and concepting, to design and development, to QA/QC and everything in between. Along the way, I realized that I get the greatest joy from helping others achieve their goals. In a way, you could say I’m making the world a better place, one frustrated professional at a time. These days, I’m in love with purposeful, conversion-focused digital marketing strategy and execution. That, and doing ridiculous things outdoors – usually where oxygen is limited. When I’m not helping entrepreneurs and executive-level professionals, I can be found traipsing around the woods near the cabin in which I have lived with my wife and menagerie of pets since 1993. There I watch movies, read, and polish the details of my latest (possibly ill-advised) master plan for world domination. If you’re interested in pulling me out of the woods for a coffee and talking shop (or hearing how I managed to actually run 100 miles in one go), please send an email my way (stuart@relishstudio.com), give me a call (303.825.4441), check out the podcast (relishthis.org), or grab a copy of my book, Mission Uncomfortable. Important Links and Resources:
Carol Hamilton: My guest today on Mission Impact is Stu Swineford of Relish Studios. Welcome to Mission Impact, the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I am Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. Stu and I talk about the nonprofit marketing ecosystem and how complex it can be, why it is important to really be able to articulate what makes your organization different, and why many nonprofits struggle with the attract phase of the marketing cycle Before we jump into the conversation I want to let you know about a new thing that I am doing. I am hosting the Nonprofit Leadership Roundtable every couple months. During the Roundtable, you get to talk with your peers, share an opportunity or challenge you are having at work and get some peer coaching on the topic. The Roundtable is free and I host it on Zoom. The next one will be Thursday April 28, 2022. You can register on the Eventbrite site. We will post a link from the mission impact website. It would be great to see you there. All right. Welcome Stu. Welcome to the podcast. Stu Swineford: Thank you so much for having me on Carol. I'm really excited to talk with you today. Carol: So I like to start out with a question around what, what drew you to the work that you do? What, what motivates you and what would you describe as your why? Stu: That's a great question. I think that it comes down to my initial motivation, [it] was opportunity. I was working as a sales guy at a bike catalog company back in the early nineties. And had been working there for a couple of years. And one day the owner came to me and said, Hey, do you want to go to lunch? And I thought, well, this is a weird way to fire somebody. But we went on a bike ride for lunch and during that ride invited me to help them with copywriting. So at the time I was just being, I was just a sales guy, but they needed some help writing copy for the county business. This tells you how old I am. We're talking about actual physical catalogs back in the day. So I raised my hand and said, yeah, that sounds great. I think that sounds like fun. So I became a copywriter in about six weeks. After that the graphic artists decided that she no longer wanted to work there and just stopped showing up. So we had a catalog that needed to be completed and gotten out the door in about three or four weeks after that. And I thought to myself, well, I know how to turn the Mac on. So maybe this is something I can do. So I raised my hand and said, how about I take this on and see about. Being a graphic designer and all of a sudden at about the age of 23 or so, I found myself as the director of marketing for one of the top three catalog companies in the states at the time. So it was really an opportunity that drove me initially to marketing. From there, I really was able to, Work for during the.com boom, and worked for a number of agencies and eventually found myself in a position where I decided that I knew enough to be dangerous, to run my own business. And so started relish studio back in 2018. I'm one of the co-founders of, and, and partners at relish studio. And we were able to refine what we do to bring a little bit of a different take to it where we recognized that. We had the most fun. And we did our best work when we were working for companies who had something more in mind than just making money. It wasn't just buying the owners next yacht or, or Porsche or something like that. There was a mission behind what these companies were doing. And so we really pivoted what we do to try to work with purpose driven businesses, nonprofits, people in that, in that zone who. Who really do have a little bit of a giving back mentality. So that's what we try to do here at relish studio. So I think that's our, why being able to serve authentically one of my declarations is I exist to serve and and so I really have embraced that and, and, and that's what gets me up. Carol: That's awesome. Yeah, I, I can, I can relate to that story because I feel like when I first moved into the nonprofit sector, I had a little bit of a background of doing some Well, they were actually advertorials and it was also in a, in a physical magazine that got sent to people who, who did a radio talk shows back in the day, then moved into the nonprofit sector because I wanted to really support causes that I believed in, but it was also a little bit of the case of, oh, well, she can write, so she should do marketing. Like, or, and she's organized so she can manage production. it was very much falling into it and, and, not moving out of the, out of the circles fast enough when it's like, well, okay, you, and and I've since moved away from that, but I feel like for a lot of people in the non-profit sector they may not come to their role with a huge amount of background or, they may have some basic skills. Don't have a degree in marketing or business or, and they're having to learn as they go. So where would you say is a place to start for folks who, they, they somehow end up with that title. But aren't really, don't necessarily have a real huge background in, in the field for a, for a small organization. Stu: That's a really fantastic question. It's like marketing a marketing title through necessity and opportunity there. Right. I think that. So we have a blog post that actually has gotten quite a bit of traction over the years that just talks about the marketing ecosystem and how complex it can be and understanding that there are a thousand things that you can do in any given day. The best plan of action is to pick one and do it really well. And then you can move on into other options, understanding also where your audience is going to play. I think that there are a lot of people who feel forced into social media. They may not be comfortable with it, or, they're, they're trying to do all of the things in social media instead of just figuring out which one will have the most impact and going there. So we always try to start with values, vision, mission making sure that there's a good understanding, a good solid understanding of, of what makes your organization different. And then really rolling into the audience, who are the people who are going to support your organization. And where do they go to get information where they go to engage and, and start there? So for example, in the nonprofit world, the boomer generation is still one of the most powerful. Donor pools out there. But there are a lot of new social media platforms out there that are exciting and fun and people want to play in. But, for example, putting all of your eggs into the TikTok basket with. Your organization and the donor pool is really in the, more aligned with the Facebook basket or even direct mail or email basket is something that you want to consider. So just make sure that you are hitting things hitting the people where they should. There are programs out there to help with coaching. In fact, relish studio has a coaching program as well, where we help budding marketers learn more about marketing and, and become more adept at being able to fill. Role within their organizations. So I'd say that going out and trying to seek out those types of service opportunities or learning opportunities would be another, another place to, to start as you're dipping your toe in the marketing. Carol: Yeah. And you make some great points there. I mean, one of the things that, as I was thinking about our conversation today, I was thinking about was, with marketing today, there are just so many different options, different directions that people can go in different channels. And so starting about thinking, who are you trying to reach? Who you're trying to educate or inform about what you're doing, what your organization is doing and then where they hang out and go there. And instead of, “oh, well I'm comfortable writing, so I'm going to do a blog,” but no one's going to come to it or, from your own comfort level of like, “oh, I have fun on Instagram and I'm going to go there.” [Try] thinking about it from the other person's point of view: where are your donors – or potential donors – and how can you reach them where they're at? Stu: One of the things that we've done, we have a blog but one of the things we recognized is, it's really challenging to get people to come to your site for a “regular blog” type of scenario. So we looked at a couple of ideas and in one of those was why don't we go where the audience is. And so I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn basically putting material there. It can be, it can be reused on the blog. So it's not like you can't use that material on your site as well. And we've actually seen a strong growth in both organic and redirected traffic from LinkedIn to our site. So, I think that what I really recognized was I was able to reach a larger audience. If I went to where they were actually hanging out, rather than asking them to come, come join me wherever. Carol: Yeah, exactly. And I think the other thing that you talked about right, there was just the ability to use one thing, but re put it in different places, repurpose it. And, and I think that that's a great opportunity for organizations, especially when there's, they're stretched so thin. They don't need to be in that constant turn of, we’ve got to create something new all the time, what's the take, the one thing, and how can you use it in five different ways? So if somebody were to try to do some more repurposing of what they're already producing, what are some ways that you would talk them through thinking about. Stu: Well, a podcast is a great example. You can start with an audio or a video explanation or discussion or conversation. And from that, you can get a variety of different materials. So I have a podcast called Relish. It's about nonprofit marketing. And I have conversations with nonprofit leaders and experts in the field who bring a lot to the table in terms of opportunities to just have discussions around, around marketing and how people can do a better job. So there's one asset there, which is the podcast itself. That podcast theoretically can be broken into sound bites. If there are nice little quotes in there, those can be leveraged on social media. You can put a sound byte out that is a teaser to the show that drives people back to the podcast. The transcript of the podcast becomes an opportunity to create written content that can be used in a variety of different ways, both on social media and on a blog et cetera. In fact, what are the, one of the ideas around starting the show was that I would get a book out of it, out of it. I'd have, let's say 52 conversations. And from that we had a book, essentially. I have not yet written that book, but it's certainly there and the opportunity there to take what started as an audio recording and. pretty quickly enables you to repurpose that material. in a variety of different ways to, to get the most out of that one piece of media. I am also always on the lookout during my show for blog opportunities and ideas. And so we leverage it that way as well as send out an email about the show, send out an email with that, with those blog post opportunities. So, we're repurposing what started as one conversation into a whole variety of different materials. We also publish the audio to YouTube as a video. I know there are a lot of podcasts out there that record video for their shows as well. So, there's just a lot, a lot of ways to to take one piece of media and make it really like. Carol: Yeah. I mean, I started including transcripts of the interviews. My initial motivation was just around accessibility in terms of the deaf community who obviously can't listen to a podcast. But I realized there was someone who was listening who said “No, I love the fact that you do transcripts because I don't generally listen to podcasts, but I love reading the conversation.” So it makes it accessible to folks whether they have a challenge in the way or not. So yeah, then all those things that you're talking about, how can you springboard from that one piece? What do you see as the biggest challenges facing nonprofits when it comes to marketing and getting the word out about the work that they do? Stu: Well it really depends on the non-profit the maturity level of, of, of each nonprofit, I would say. I think that non-profits tend to have a real challenge in the attract phase. So if you consider our idea that there are essentially four major phases of a stakeholders life cycle: attract, bond, connect, and then inspire. Within those, you can break it out into a little more granularly where people need to know about you. So they need to find out who you are. They need to then develop a sense of liking you where they're like, okay. Yeah, this is a person I'm interested in continuing to follow trusting you. So providing proof that you're doing a good job or. social proof that demonstrates that that is what you're doing. And then we move into the connect phase so that those are part of the bond of the attraction phase. We move into the connect phase where they're really being able to try and buy. So, small offers, small opportunities to have a value exchange. Usually that's an email. It starts with time for value. And then you escalate that to perhaps an email address for value. And then eventually that becomes a financial transaction where you're actually getting a donation. And then or, or a purchase, if you're a nonprofit actually has a product that they can sell. And then we move into the inspire phase, which is essentially once you have established that financial, transactional relationship moving into the inspire phase is really getting those people to shout your praises, to spread the message to reach a wider audience, as well as repeat. So you're taking a one-time donor and turning them into a second time donor, turning them into a monthly donor. Maybe getting their business involved and having. Those relationships grow into something that's bigger than what it first started, which might be a simple $20 donation. And so, so really I think some of the big challenges lie in that attract phase. What are the things that we can do as a nonprofit to get the word out and encourage people to come learn more? What are those offers? What are those things that are going to get people to. To say, oh, I want to learn more about this. And that tends to be I think one of the, one of the biggest areas of challenge is, is just starting to, how do I, how do I get in front of the right people to get them to come to my site or to learn more about. Carol: So, what are some things that you've seen organizations be successful in, in terms of that attract phase or that, just building some awareness around the work that the organization is doing. Stu: I think that organizations, one of the things that we see organizations of almost every type struggle with is how to position themselves as the guidance story. All of us want to be the hero in our own stories. And most organizations fall into that trap where, when they talk about themselves with. When they're attempting to talk to their audiences, they tend to talk more about themselves than their audiences and fail to really see opportunities to reframe that narrative where the audience becomes the hero of that story. And it's a challenge in the non-profit space because people are out doing really good work. They are out there, changing lives and. Perhaps saving lives. And so it's, it's pretty easy to fall into that trap of, we do this type of language. I think reframing that narrative and doing the best that you can to put it into that perspective of where your donors are, where the people in that audience are framed as the hero of that story. So trying to figure out what their motivations would be to donate to your organization, what is inspiring them to fill that role and then framing your narrative around that is one, one way to just start that process certainly as I said a few minutes ago, making sure that you're, you're in the right place to be starting. Those conversations are important as well. I would recommend that every organization out there do a survey of their constituents or their stakeholders and just find out where, where they go to get information, what social channels are they on? Where do they go, how do they even like gathering information? So, I like to read, but I don't want to watch a video. And that'll really inform not only. Where to go, but what media type to to leverage in that place in order to, to get in front of the right people and, and and create materials with that, they'll be interested in engaging with, Carol: Can you give me an example of turning that around that reframe that you're saying of being the guide versus the hero in the story? Stu: Yeah. So an example in the nonprofit space might be, let's say you are a, let's say you're an organization that builds trails and advocates for trail use in in a certain area. One of the ways that you might re-frame that conversation. So instead of saying, Hey, we help save the trails and keep them clean. And ready for all of the access that people might want. You might want to reframe that in the perspective of, if we know that you are passionate about trails and want to keep them safe. So by donating today, you help w you help keep this area's trails open and accessible for all. Carol: Yeah. So it's turning it around again. I mean, just like you were saying at the beginning where it's, go, go where the folks are, right. Rather than where you want to hang out and then put them in the center of the story instead of, instead of yourself. Yeah, just really appreciate that you talked about maturity levels of organizations, kind of. I'm curious what you see. Well, obviously there, there are organizations that are early on small as they get bigger. What are some different things that you see as opportunities as, as organizations grow to maybe, I don't know whether it's necessarily to expand their marketing, but maybe do it differently as they. Stu: Yeah. So I think as organizations grow and this can be any organization you have, have built up an audience, you have built up a base of clients or donors or stakeholders that have raised their hand that are ready to continue to engage. With your organization, if you just ask them. And so the lowest hanging fruit tends to fall into that inspire phase where it's way easier to get a donor to donate again than it is to take someone through that entire journey of attracting, bond and connect and get them to donate for the first time. We, as people love shiny new things, it's just, for whatever reason our brains are geared toward how exciting it is to land something new. So it's a little boring to go back to Stephanie or Jim or, or, or, or Gail and say, Hey, would you be willing to do it? Would you be willing to donate again? Could we turn you into potentially a monthly donor? That just isn't as exciting in our brains, but it's an easier opportunity. So two things there first is. Yeah, it's way easier to get someone to donate again than it is to get them to donate the first time. And the second thing is those people also have demonstrated their interest in your organization and their desire to help your organization. And so even though. Even if they aren't able to donate again right now, they will probably be willing to share your mission with their networks. So that repeat and refer area is something that we see as more available to a mature organization, because you've just simply been around for longer. And you have those connections built up versus a startup, nonprofit who right now doesn't really have a whole lot of opportunity to re-engage donors if they, if they're just starting to get them. Carol: Yeah. And what comes to mind is the phrase, “oh, you're just preaching to the choir.” Well, you need the choir yeah. Those folks that continue to, to show up maybe at your events, maybe, participating in programs, donating all of those different things. And so making sure that you're treating the choir well is, is, is important Stu: Well to extend that metaphor, the choir sings really, really well. Carol: Right. And how can you help them see broader, broader audiences? Stu: Exactly, exactly. And a lot of times that's just giving them something to say, that social post and sharing it, writing an email that they can share with their, with their team, just, getting them one step down the road, saying, Hey. Feel free to modify this, however you'd like, but here's, here's some ways that you can spread this message a little bit, a little bit more effectively, and we wanted to help you help make that easier. That's certainly among the recommendations that we would have for that referral type of athlete. Carol: Yeah, that, that point of making it easy for folks. I was with a group the other day, and a woman was talking about, she wanted to take action in this particular arena. And, she went on to a website. It was, this was around, advocating for voting rights. And she was motivated. She went. But there was just so much information on the website. It was so complicated. It just overwhelmed her and she ended up in paralysis. She didn't take any action, even though she was motivated enough to go to their website and try to read, but they, they didn't, keep it simple, they wanted to give the person all the information. And so, unfortunately it probably had the opposite impact that they actually wanted because she didn't end up making the phone calls that they were hoping that she would do or anyone who would show up on the website. Right. And was motivated to take action. Stu: Yeah. We tend to fall into the trap of wanting to tell people all the things. And if we can focus on one thing at a time, this is why I've, I've gotten a little bit away from newsletters and have started focusing email outreach on a single idea and a single action. So instead of giving people a choose your own adventure, monthly newsletter, where, there are nine things that they could possibly do. Get interested in and maybe go exploring hitting people more frequently with more focused intentional single, single ideas. Emails have proven to be a lot more than that. Carol: Yeah, I've seen that for myself. When I first started out, I did a newsletter where I went once a month where I shared both. I did a twice-monthly blog. And so I shared links to each of them. And after a year looked at my stats and every single month, the one at the top was the one that got opened more. I was like, well, and, and the one, one further down, just and so yeah, I went to one thing, one email, one thing and people are just so bombarded with information that yeah, I think that, that desire to tell you everything that. We've got a lot to share. We want it, we want to do that. But what, what's that one thing that you really want people to take away or take action on? Stu: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. We've found that creating synergy between your email message and where you're sending people as well is super effective. And so making sure. the tendency is to be just like, okay, well we'll send them to the homepage. Well, once I get to the homepage, there's dozens of things on most sites that people can do from there. So even creating a single landing page, that is the action that we want you to take from that particular email is a really valuable exercise. Carol: So what do you see as the opportunities for organizations as they're trying to connect with people, attract them, may do that bonding help them get to know each other, create that relationship. Really. It's not just about that transaction and then moving them to inspire what are some of the opportunities that you're seeing? Stay the course and don't get distracted with the shiny new things, or are there some new things that are coming along that people should be paying attention to? Stu: Well, that's a one fun thing about marketing is there's always something new, something that's either falling out of favor because it's no longer really working or coming into favor because it's it's something that people are trying, I would say nonprofits have a tendency to lag in terms of what they are. They just don't have the bandwidth to stay on top of the latest trends. However, like I mentioned earlier, most of the donations are still coming from the boomers. At this point that'll, fairly quickly move into Gen X-ers. And it just tends to be the people with more. Less time left on the earth, as well as more income opportunities or more, more disposable income opportunities. Tend to give a little more, it's just, we tend to do that as we age. So I would say nonprofits should probably be a little less focused on the newest. Information a delivery mechanism or, or marketing channel and stay focused more on some of the things that are a little bit more tried and true. For example, email continues to be a very viable way to engage with some of the older populations. That's been something they're comfortable with. Email, if someone's on your email list, they tend to have raised their hand at some point. So they tend to be a little more engaged with you than just, something that happens to flow into their feed. I would say consistency is something that most businesses including nonprofits can benefit from is just creating content. Map a a roadmap for what the next six months look like develop themes around that, that a roadmap. So, maybe April is going to be, when you talk about this particular program, maybe when you promote some event or sweepstakes opportunity that you have et cetera, and then develop the content that's of help support that. And then just be, get really good at executing on, on that content. just be consistent about it when shiny things, I call it the shiny squirrel syndrome. When those things come up, put them, put them in a sandbox and be willing to explore those as future opportunities, but don't let those try to not let those get in the way of the plan. Carol: Yeah, I appreciate the notion of, you don't, you don't need to be on top of all the trends and picking a couple of things, doing it well, doing it consistently. Those all can have multiplier effects. So yeah, I, I think that may be a sigh of relief for most people in the nonprofit sector where it's like, we're, we're, we're trying to do so many different things. And, and I mean, I think probably that those principles would work in a lot of different areas within an organization, oftentimes where I'm working with them around strategy. It's it's, it's also trying to figure out what are the. Couple big things that you're going to be focused on, not 95 different things that you could be doing within a particular space. So yeah it aligned. Stu: You mentioned relationships earlier, and frankly, I see marketing as just relationship building, whether you're selling, trying to sell a widget or let's say a bottle of soda or trying to get someone to come on board as a major corporate donor, it's all about building relationships and getting good at having those conversations consistently. And making sure that those are authentic. And I would say if there's, if there's ever one thing to do for an executive director or a donation manager or, someone out there it's pick up the phone or get people on calls and ask them questions and develop relationships with them. even, even buying soda, for example, Coke and Pepsi and all those guys are out there trying to develop a relationship with a customer. And it may be a fairly easy relationship to develop, a dollar or whatever, however much a soda costs these days is not a heavy lift to get somebody to try something. But at the end of the day, you’re billing awareness. So not getting people to know who you are, getting people to like you, to trust you, to try to buy, to repeat your refer. that's that, that's that cycle that, that we want to get people into. And yeah, it's just about having authentic conversations is, is really, if there was one thing that every non. Leader or their team could do it, contact X amount of people and have good solid conversations with them every week. And just put a number to that and, and make sure you're hitting that. Carol: Yeah. And I think just keeping the relationship and the conversation front of line. So even when you're, you're creating something that may not be in a conversation format and back and forth too. Remember that whatever you're sharing is only one half of the conversation. So what's, what's the other half that you went back to? So that back and forth I think is really Stu: Yeah. And developing opportunities to just provide value, whatever that is. So we talked about content a little while ago. You don't always have to be, you don't always have to come up with the big story out of thin air to be a good blog post, if there's something that aligns with your mission that, in another organization, is doing, or that's interesting. I had a conversation last night about food scarcity, scarcity at a, at a meetup that I had appeared with some somebody and, there's information there that I could then share. I didn't come up with it. Found out about it. But that's like being the Maven, being the person willing to share that information. if you can just reach out to somebody and be like, Hey, I saw this article, it reminded me of you. Here's why you think it's important or why. I thought you might be interested. Let me know what you think and send that to an individual or send that to your list, in an authentic capacity that that's good. Carol: Yeah. I actually love the parts of newsletters where it's, what we're reading right now or what we're listening to. And, and, some of my most read things have been my little, like, short reviews of books, et cetera, because people are always on the lookout for recommendations from people, as you said that from people that they trust and, and they know, have a similar perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So at the end of each podcast, I ask a somewhat random icebreaker question. I have a box of icebreaker questions I pull them out of. And so I've got a couple here for you. I'll just ask you one. What I usually do is pick out three and then see where the conversation goes and see what I'm pulled to, pull to, to then ask. So what's the best advice that you've ever received? Stu: Wow. The best advice. I have been fortunate throughout my life to be able to engage with experts in a variety of different fields: business, personal life. No even athletics. I just somehow managed to be able to spend time with world champions and, and people of that nature. So I've received a lot of amazing advice over the years. I think that probably the best advice I have that I could share is to be yourself. And if you can come to every conversation and every interaction as you are authentic and be interested and, and all of those things, but essentially coming from that from who you are you're going to feel more fulfilled and you're going to develop better, stronger relationships. It's that authenticity piece that I think is super important. Carol: Yeah. And I think, yeah, absolutely. And I think that that goes for organizations as well. Right. Be themselves. Yeah, I think we're, we're social creatures and our antennae are pretty good for when people are faking it. Right. And they're not, they're phony or whatnot. And so, yeah, I think that that's, that's great. That's great advice. And we're always stepping into that. I think as we, as we continue to evolve, hopefully. Yeah, I hope Stu: so. It feels to me like I've been around in the business world since, I mean, I guess I graduated college back in the early nineties. And so I entered the business world pretty, pretty soon thereafter, and for a while, there was a real trend to never show weakness and never, never be. demonstrate that things might not be going well. We're asked for help and, and I, I'm very encouraged and maybe it's just the people that I hang with, but I'm very encouraged to see at least among that group, people being more and more vulnerable and more and more willing to share both the good things and the bad things that are going on. I think that social media has created a situation where a lot of us argue. Given the opportunity to, to see how people may be struggling because they just put out the good stuff out there and just really understand that it's okay to be vulnerable. And when you can be yourself and show up in an authentic way good things happen. Carol: Yeah. And with that, I think I appreciate it. I've heard it from Brene Brown of also being aware of who's earned the right to your story. Who's earned the right to, what levels of vulnerability. Are you, are you telling a story from a wound or a scar? So I think that that's also important when you, those, those big, big blanket statements don't, obviously it never works in every situation, but the more that you can, be willing to yeah. I recognize, and share when, when you're struggling and that. But you need help. Right. And asking for help, I think, is certainly something that I've had to step into and learn more about as I grow older. So yeah. Appreciate that. So what are you excited about? What's emerging in your work? Stu: I think that is one of the things that I have been working on for quite some time. And it's really coming to fruition and I'm incredibly excited about it. It's something I spoke about a little while ago, which is this coaching opportunity. I love helping people. I love helping people be their best selves. And so being able to create a coaching program that puts me in a, in a. In a position to be able to help people in that capacity has been really fulfilling and I'm super excited to continue to expand that program. So, it's something that we have, I have several, several coaching clients at this point and And so it's really fun to be able to meet with them on a, on a regular basis and watch their progress and see how much they can come alive in, in the marketing space and be able to contribute to the growth and success and ability for their organizations to to expand that. Carol: Yeah. So it goes back to that. You don't have to do it young. You don't have to go it alone. You can, you can get help. Stu: Yeah, for sure. There are lots of resources available out there and I'm certainly available. And, and, if somebody would like to discuss some of the challenges they're facing or, or what coaching might look like, I'd be happy to chat with them about. Carol: Well, thank you so much. Thank you for being on the podcast. It's been a super pleasure. I'm excited to be able to have this chat with you and look forward to talking with you soon. Stu: Alright. Thank you so much. Thanks Carol. Carol: I appreciated Stu’s point about thinking about all of your communications from the point of view of those you are trying to reach. So if your average donor is a Baby Boomer, spending a lot of time on TikTok probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. Where do they hang out and how can you go to them? And then when you are telling your story – making yourself the guide not the hero of the story – putting the people that benefit from your work at the center instead of yourself. That can be a little tricky because you don’t want to be in the business of not respecting your clients privacy or using their challenges for inspiration porn. At the same time – how can you get yourself out of the way of the story you are trying to tell. I also appreciated Stu’s emphasis on keeping it simple. Asking people to do one thing – just one thing. When I am talking to people as part of the strategic planning processes that I support, I ask them if they had a magic wand and could change the organization in any way, what would their wishes be. So if I were to give myself the magic wand, it would be to have every policy person who writes policy updates and asks their constituents to take an action – write an email, call their representative to simplify their messages. And if they really want to share all the details – they would have two options – Click here for the highlight summary – that would have at most a sentence or two explaining – why they wanted me to contact my representative to vote for or against the bill and then provide a mechanism for me to do that. SIMPLE. Then they could include a second option – if you want all the details – click here – But right now – most of the advocacy communications I receive only have the second version. Maybe the policy people think it is the simple version – but to a layperson like me it is not. So yes – keep it simple and to the point! With that I should get to the point… Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. You can find out how to connect with Stu, his bio, the full transcript of our conversation, as well as any links and resources mentioned during the show in the show notes at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. I want to thank Isabelle Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production as well as April Koester of 100 Ninjas for her production support. Please take a minute to rate and review Mission Impact on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. I also hope of course that you subscribe so that you will get future episodes. Reviewing the podcast helps other people find the podcast. We appreciate it!  This episode is the final part of the Culture Fit project that Carol recorded with her son-in-law Peter Cruz. In this episode, Carol, her cohost Peter Cruz, and their guest Dr. Gia Grier McGinnis discuss:
Dr. Gia Grier McGinnis is a senior leader with over 17 years of broad-ranging experience in program management, advocacy, and community outreach. She has a passion for public engagement in STEM, and currently serves as the Executive Director of the UMB CURE Scholars Program, a groundbreaking healthcare and STEM pipeline program for West Baltimore youth. Dr. Grier McGinnis is a Baltimore, Maryland native where she still resides with her family. She enjoys exploring urban green spaces and volunteering to promote mental health awareness. Important Links and Resources:
Transcript: Carol Hamilton: My guest today on Mission Impact is Dr. Gia Grier McGinnis. This is the last of the series of interviews I did in collaboration with my son-in-law Peter Cruz as part of our culture fit podcast project. Mission Impact is the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I’m Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. On this podcast we explore how to make your organization more effective and innovative. We dig into how to build organizational cultures where your work in the world is aligned with how you work together as staff, board members and volunteers. All for this is for the purpose of creating greater mission impact. Gia, Peter and I talk about the challenges young people of color face in seeing themselves in STEM fields given how historically – and currently – white male dominated the fields tend to be, how she found role models and mentors and has played that role for other, and how she sees the impacts of health disparities play out front and center in the work she does and how the news of police brutality impacts her students. It has taken me a little while to get all these interviews for the culture fit project out so our conversation is from last year so some of the events we reference in terms of where we were in the pandemic reflect that. Before we jump into the conversation I want to let you know about a new thing that I am doing. I am hosting the Nonprofit Leadership Roundtable every couple months. During the Roundtable, you get to talk with your peers, share an opportunity or challenge you are having at work and get some peer coaching on the topic. The Roundtable is free and I host it on Zoom. The next one will be Thursday April 28, 2022. You can register on the Eventbrite site. We will post a link from the mission impact website. It would be great to see you there. Peter Cruz: Welcome to Culture Fit, the podcast where we do our best to answer your diversity, equity, and inclusion questions that will help you navigate the professional landscape, especially when you are not a culture fit. I am Peter Cruz. Carol: And I’m Carol Hamilton. Peter: How are you doing? Carol: I am doing well, managed to run and grab a little bite for lunch. So that was good. Peter: Yeah. It's needed. I think the only thing that I've been snacking on are these foods that are good for health. White cheddar puffs. They're like healthy healthy Cheetos Cheeto puffs. Those are the only things like since the heart attack and stroke that I can snack on. Carol: My favorite has been dried mango. We are now buying in bulk from Costco. Peter: So now that we've got the snack plugs out of the way, this week we have Gia Grier McGinnis. How are you doing here? Gia Grier McGinnis: Great. Peter: Great. For our listeners, can you provide us some context on your professional background, who you are, where you from? Gia: So from Baltimore city originally, I've had two overarching themes to my career. One is that like public and community engagement, the other is always with health science or the environment. And sometimes those two things have play together and sometimes I've done them separately on the. Right now, I'm the executive director of a program called CURE Scholars at the university of Maryland Baltimore system and healthcare pipeline program for west Baltimore, middle and high school youth. I'm also really into mental health advocacy right now. I'm on the board of NAMI, Maryland. And I know Carol, from my days on the Baltimore GreenMap board, which is about giving access to young people in the community to green spaces around Baltimore. Peter: Could you speak a little bit about this? The fellowship program that you work with. Could you elaborate a little more on that? Gia: So CURE scholars started back in 2015 and really the idea is we're trying to generate the next generation of STEM and healthcare leaders for the society to work on health disputes. We actually recruit youth at sixth grade level and we stay with those youth all the way through high school. It's a multi-year program. They're all recruited from the same three west Baltimore middle schools. Very close to the University Maryland at Baltimore's campus which is intended to be good neighbors to the west Baltimore community. And we both provide them with STEM activities year round, but we also have a social work team that helps them with social emotional support and with any barriers that the families might have anything from food insecurity to unemployment. We consider ourselves a wraparound program. Peter: Great. And, and this is more for, I guess, exposure or would this lead into like, I guess, internships in the future? Gia: Certainly. At the early grades, a lot of it's about exposure. They do like STEM labs and three science areas. But as they get older we partner with Youth Works, which is Baltimore city summer jobs program. We actually serve as an employment site. For their summer, they do get paid to do their STEM work with us. Once they hit high school level we also have a team that works on college career readiness. The goal is to actually walk them into competitive STEM majors on college campuses, or for those that maybe don't feel like college is for them to explore careers that may require maybe two year degrees with something more technical. Peter: And, and for that being that STEM is, and I think we've all experienced this like as, as women or people of color. But STEM is a very white male dominated space. What are, what do you feel like are some key areas that you yourself or the program and the fellowship Tried to address and I'm like holding on for, I guess, the code switching, the amount of code switching that might, may need to be done or, or simulation at a fairly young age. Gia: Yeah. I mean, so really what we're trying to do is, get them to see themselves as scientists. Like you are a person of color. You can be a scientist and it's amazing how many scholars will expose them to say a dentist or expose them to say a psychiatrist. I didn't know, black people could be like, like it's tough. It's like, of course, but to them, it's like, oh, okay. Right. That's a career I could have too. And it, it really actually works as a spark, like. A role model that looks like them, which is what we try to do in the program, is exposed to career professionals and they go, okay, like maybe I'll be a genius or maybe I'll be a nurse. Because I see that the other thing we started doing this year is we did a whole week last week on mental health. Trying to get them to learn about self care, trying to get them to learn about, breaking the stigmas on. Like, you can take care of yourself. You can understand that as a person of color, you're carrying a lot of stress. we had yoga sessions. We had a speaker come and talk about black male wellness. We then had a separate session for ladies. really trying to get them to understand. Yeah, stem fields will be stressful. And how do you prepare yourself? You can't change others a lot of the time, but how do you help yourself cope and how do you navigate life in general against stresses that come at you? Peter: Yeah. Cause those are things that we're all kind of, and it'd be like don't escape those things, right. Like what have you learned from working in this, in this field and doing, like, even facilitating or coordinating these types of things, whatever you learned insofar as your own professional experience. And I mean, I could only assume having to assimilate or coats, which are under like, cause. discovering new things and new perspectives as we become more of a progressive society. Yeah. what are some like new things that are tricks of the trade, but you have even. Oh, like, I have a hot moment, like, oh, wow. I've been doing this my whole life where I probably shouldn't have. Gia: Yeah. it was interesting. like I said, I grew up in Baltimore city and I always just had a natural interest in the environment and nature before I had a label for those things. And eventually I go off to college and it's Predominantly White Institution and in the environmental studies major, I am the only black woman in all of my classes. And I don't say it was like a bro culture. It wasn't, I mean, it wasn't, it was just, it was a small liberal arts college. it was very, everyone's very chill and Hey, white, white, white very small. And it was a huge culture shock right. Coming from Baltimore city, going to what was on the Eastern shore, Maryland. A small way. But it was like, the black community on that campus did the whole, well, white kids sitting together at the cafeteria, we sat together and stayed together socially and so very early, you learn like, all right, you need support systems. like, every once in a while you see a person of color. Be by themselves. And it's like, eventually they drift to the car. It's like, yes. Right, right. You need, you need us, we need each other. we, that was something very early. It's like, find, find your people both intellectually, but also culturally if you need to. And then as I move through life, I think the environmental fields become a little bit more diverse than they used to be. Well, all that tiny bit, like ma'am, there are more campuses that have the major and things like that. And people talk more about climate change and things like that. But yeah, I mean, when I graduated from that university, I was the only black graduate in that major. But what I noticed was right behind me was another black female. Like she declared like right, right in the class behind me and. That was great to see. Right. So if one person does it right. Okay. It's cool. If one person does it, like, okay, maybe I can do it now. And so in subsequent years, they're a little bit more people going through that program. Peter: Do you feel like, as you reflect on that time being that you were the first and only. Is it a burden to be that type of a role model? Like, did you feel like you were a role model, even though you were in your mid, late, early? Gia: Actually I didn’t. And I think that's, you don't really, you're not thinking about it. You're thinking about your own experience. You're not thinking about like younger classmates or and I just moved in spaces that I wanted to, like, I was very active on that campus. I was in student government. Again, like one of the few ran people and that, I just, I did whatever I wanted to. I studied abroad. I did all these things and other students were like, oh, don't, you just want to be black student union. It's like, I want to do everything like I do all the things. But no, I never really saw myself as like chili then or anything like that. Peter: And when you shifted from guess university to then the professional landscape, like did your college experience in like defaulting and trying to find and establish support systems being that you go into the professional landscape and that it may not necessarily be the case, especially if you look a certain way. Gia: it's interesting. , I graduated from undergrad and then I went to Washington DC for an AmeriCorps year. it did, they now call it, they call it a gap year now I don't know what to do. I'm going to do it. AmeriCorps is what I called it. And I did, I was working for an environmental health children's mental health network and there was a black female. She's now the ED, but a black female in that office. Again, a role model for me. I call her every once in a while when I'm stuck. But what happened was that the program was really keyed into environmental justice. I actually found by the environmental justice community in DC there is a great community organizer named Diamond Smith. He was really active in South African divestment,but had started this black peace and justice group in DC. So I was doing it. And by miracle work with the children's grandmother, not that work doing environmental justice work, but al doing this peace and justice work with this really incredible leader. I found it. My community of organizers and people that were really committed to inclusion and really loved it. That was a year where I was just like soaking in all sorts of social justice, overwhelmed with it. And it was that time. And I remember it was like the occupation they're all these, like, this is kinda like early two thousands and like DCU is exploding with all the anti occupation stuff. I was like, knee-deep in that. And then over here, I was knee-deep in environmental justice and health stuff. We're kids. And it was like an overload of social justice. And it was a wonderful, wonderful year. But then I was like, I want to go back to school. then I went back and That's a university culture for a couple more years. Peter: And in that time, did you feel like the university culture had changed at all? Gia: this time I went off to a totally different campus. University of Michigan. Big huge school. But within that, I was in the natural, natural resources school, which again, had a very small community of people of color in the environmental justice program they had there. And again, like, Here's community again, right this time, our environmental justice group that we're doing like work in Detroit and Dearborn and our mentors kind of, teaching their classes. And so again like predominantly white culture, but finding this group of people that really cared about environmental justice and, and really, thinking in and, and finding a home. Peter: from your having a lot of experience of being one of few, what are some things that you tried to instill in the CURE fellowship or scholarship fellowship? Gia: The scholars. And out of school time program, it's also considered a, what they call pipeline program. it's walking the youth progressively into a career field. But yeah, I mean, it's all about raising confidence, giving them platforms to lead, giving them platforms to present to others. one of the activities they do at the end of the year, say. Then called the SIM expo, where they get to present to their family and their community about a science topic they've picked and worked on in spring semester. this is like their time to like, stand up and introduce themselves like when you go to poster sessions at conferences and you could just see like the ones that maybe start out in the beginning of the year, super shy by the time they hit the expert or like, saying their names, shaking hands, eye contact. They stand up a little taller, which, again, like you need to develop that confidence to be able to navigate what's going to come next. a lot of it's about wrapping around them and saying, okay, you can do this. And you're just as smart as any other kid out here. Carol: Yeah. And I was talking to someone this morning who described those public speaking skills and all the things you're talking about, this. It's really leadership skills. Gia: Absolutely. Peter: And also for, because so far we've been talking about like from the leadership, if you have control over a certain environment, which more often than not, we do not, but if you do. Establishing an environment where these young people, cause yes, they are building up these like hard skills throughout this process, but the soft skills that they're also and needs that they're being that are being addressed are acknowledgement and recognition, which are like the most vital things to not feel excluded. Carol: Yeah. I heard you just continue to come back to the notion of finding, finding community. As a, as a safe space and a place to, I dunno, hang out, be yourself, not worried that not, be on as a place to rejuvenate that whole importance of wellness. And how do you build those skills and practices that you can keep, keep on keeping on. Peter: For those young people as that warm handoff like they transition and progressed through the full, through the program is what is alumni engagement? Cause I think like, being a part, when you're a college student being a part of a fraternity sorority, or a club, like you like to go back to those people when you need to do that type of thing exist or, or is in the process of being. Gia: what's interesting with this is because the program's only five years old, our oldest scholars are juniors and we were literally building the program as we go. And we'll have our first graduates next year, which is super exciting. And we're already thinking ahead, like, okay, they're going to be first year students on college campuses. What can we be doing? How can we get some of them, the thread back and maybe do near peer mentoring with the ones coming behind them because they would be the best mentors the program has eventually as they get older. And so we're definitely starting to think about that. As we look to our first graduates, Peter: That's exciting to make it. Like, I can't wait. Like I'm sure they are as equally as excited about the prospect of the world opening back up so that they could stop mething very large-scale Gia: like that it's been hard, you, like the, the scholars you don't want line learning has been tough. I definitely think, yeah, next year. Looking forward to seeing them in person. Peter: we've been talking for a minute. I only have another one question. Carol, do you happen to have any additional questions or can I ask the classic Peter question? Carol: I guess I was just thinking that, that this year, even though I obviously, for the program for everyone, it's been a bit of a tough year. And at the same time, it puts all of those issues that you've been working on front and center in terms of disparities, in terms of health equity, or lack of equity. Even right now, as we're looking at the vaccine, roll out how that's not happening in, in an equitable way in Maryland. I was wondering how you're using what's going on right now to work with students and have conversations about it? Gia: Absolutely. We both provide them a little bit of clear information about COVID as it's a science program. Of course let's learn about neurology. But also, some of them have had COVID. Some of the families have had COVID. I had COVID so just also sometimes, we'll get family calls that say, We have COVID and okay, well here's here resources that the university has. Like, here's how I'm, here are things you can do. And so we've definitely had it hit home for people, but also trying to use it as a teachable moment for science and stem. it is a great time for public health right now. But yeah we've also had, Things with the pandemic just affect families, economically, just unemployment. our social work team helped develop an emergency fund. we have this fun that parents can tap if they need emergency electrical assistance or help someone buy an oven the other a couple months ago. whatever we can do, and of course it was all a very quick pivot, right? we're, everything was a pivot, The pandemic hit and just all of a sudden we had all these new issues and al exacerbated issues amongst our network. And we really had to think about, okay, how do we continue to Pratt support virtually safely? getting people resources. yeah, it's been a really challenging year and then I'm looking forward to the herd immunity or the vaccine distribution pushing out. Peter: Well, I'm about what we're first firstly, glad that you're doing well. I think the last question that we have is having experienced what you've had in the entire tidy of 2020. Also actually let me ask this question first. We, we address the pandemic, but In regards to the social unrest resurgence of black lives matter that impacted the young people that you serve and also you as a person. Gia: Yeah. first of all, say this community was deeply impacted by. 2015, it's the protests in Baltimore that went through west Baltimore, it's almost like Freddie Gray all over again for these communities. And our scholars, they read the news. They're very up to speed on what's happening. Some of them express concerns for their own safety of traveling out in space as a person of color because they saw what was happening on the news and they're just like, should I even be going outside now? We brought in a speaker for them, so we could talk through after George , we did a social justice town hall around that, just to get them to talk about that and unpack that. But absolutely these young people are very aware about what's happening around them and their place in the world. And what does that mean for them and trying to figure that out. Peter: Yeah. Cause it's like, it's one of those things where of course they can see the positive and then you get like, oh, I could potentially replicate that. But that's through my own, I guess, effort and like sticktoitiveness, but things like Freddie Gray, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, like those things can just happen without my knowledge. But also I could see myself with them as well. now then that transitioned, like, because you're building, we are building these habits as a society. Also your program, your. What are some things that you are looking forward to in the near future or, 2021 and beyond in regards to the program, societally, how the mental health of these young people. Gia: Definitely looking forward to the end of the pandemic, but also through all the struggles of the pandemic, we've actually done some things that are a little innovative, like things that we never would have normally done had it not been for the pandemic. certain types of programming that we've never done before. All the things we're doing online are pretty neat. And so there's also this sense of, Do we go right back to the way we were or do we hybridize and go, actually that was pretty cool. What we did there, there and there. I also look forward to thinking more about, okay, what does crew styles look like with our curriculum post pandemic? Like, we used to have monsters. Huge events like with hundreds of people. are we still doing that? do we, do we figure out a different way to solve it or maybe we can do that, you know? I think it's actually exciting like this whole year of like, do you ever think differently? I think it has opened the door to be like, okay, maybe moving forward, we do do some things differently. it's actually pretty exciting. Peter: Yeah. I mean, yeah, there's, we're at this intersection of like potential and like having been through so much. it's like, it's very exciting to actually like, be in the midst of history, if that makes sense. But yeah You don't want to hold up more of your time, I think. thank you so much for joining us. We truly appreciate it. And maybe we'll have you on after the graduation and see how that Gia: oh, absolutely. Carol: Well, thank you so much and thank you for all the work you've done. Peter: Again, thank you to Gia. That was a great conversation and a lot of great insight on her work and her as a person and the journey that she's been on. I think some of the things that really stood out to me is the importance, like you mentioned, of community Wherever you go. It's important to have that support system and knowing that there are people who are going through the same journey as you who have the same concerns is always comforting in a very real way. When you go into professional spaces that you are truly the minority, she's another person who is one and only that it is very intimidating and scary. Kind of, for me at a younger age, I would probably avoid those spaces. Yeah, so, the importance of community and being recognized and acknowledged as a person, as a being, as, as someone who is different, because I think most spaces want to be like, oh, we're all family here. It's like, nah, we're all different. And that's okay. Carol: Yeah. And I think when we pulled together our tagline. Podcasts and, and name. And when I was listening to that again, I'm thinking, oh God, I hope people don't think that we're kind of, advocating that people have to, be a culture fit or have to assimilate or have to take on these attributes. It's more a recognition that that's the reality. And a lot of people are navigating and Yeah. just that, that just acknowledging that reality. And how people have to manage those to survive and thrive. Peter: It’s really like a spotlight on the struggle that we all go through. The mental gymnastics that we all have to play as someone who. Isn't part of the majority. And I think as we go and have more conversations, different people will have a couple of episodes where it's just us and talking about our experience and juggling all that. Yeah, the importance to, for stem exposure. And we're doing the importance for, I guess, The emotional and, and mental baggage that we have. Like we're exposing everyone to that. These are all very real things. And what you're going through is also just as real. Carol: Yeah, absolutely. In that support of a, of a group of folks going through it together to make it just a little bit easier. Peter: Sure. All right. So. For us please send those over to culturefitpod@gmail.com. And we will see you at, yeah, we'll see you when we see you. Carol: Thanks for listening. Bye bye. Peter and Carol: Bye. Carol: Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. You can find out how to connect with Gia, her full bio, the transcript of our conversation, as well as any links and resources mentioned during the show in the show notes at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. I want to thank Isabelle Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production as well as April Koester of 100 Ninjas for her production support. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it on your favorite social media platform and tag us. We appreciate you helping us get the word out. Until next time!  Brief discussion of attempted murder from 26:27 until 26:38
In episode 43 of Mission: Impact, Carol and her guest, Travis Johnson discuss:
Travis Johnson is the host of the Nonprofit Architect Podcast. Travis shares his perspective as the former Vice President of Books by Vets; a board member at the S.H.I.N.E. foundation; he’s donated over $30,000; volunteered over 1,500 hours; raised more than $500,000; helped start 6 nonprofits; event coordinator; and published author. Travis is currently serving as an active-duty officer in the United States Navy, married with two children, and on move #50. His humble beginnings include 36 moves before graduating high school at 17, 6 states, 5 foster homes, and surviving 2 murder attempts. Although this was very rough, there was always a person, group, or church willing to help him and his family. Now that he’s in a position to give back, he’s made it his mission to “Help the Helpers”. Important Links and Resources:
Carol Hamilton: My guest today on Mission Impact is Travis Johnson. Travis and I talk about why Travis thinks every nonprofit should have a podcast, the benefits of podcasting, and how podcasting can help your overall social media strategy. Welcome to Mission Impact, the podcast for progressive nonprofit leaders who want to build a better world without becoming a martyr to the cause. I am Carol Hamilton, your podcast host and nonprofit strategic planning consultant. Welcome Travis. Welcome to the podcast. Travis Johnson: Hey, thanks for having me, Carol. Carol: So I'd like to start each conversation with a question around what motivates folks. So, what drew you to the work that you're doing now? What would you say motivates you and what would you describe as your why? Travis: I have a why, and I just had this conversation right before we got on about a mutual friend of mine and this other guy, he's like, why are you doing all this stuff? And he replied because I'm allergic to being poor is like, why I'm doing so many things. That's not my why, but I thought it was a hilarious way to put that in context. But we're talking about the show that I had with the nonprofit architect podcast when I was growing. We had a lot of help and we needed a lot of help. I went through 36 moves, 12 schools, six states, five foster homes, and survived two murder attempts all before graduating high school at 17. And that means that we needed a lot of help, whether it was from individuals, churches, social services, or nonprofit organizations. You have a lot of credit to all the people that helped our family grow up there, the reason that we stayed sheltered close at the fed, and now that I'm in a place where I'm not in that scarcity of that survival mode, I'm able to give back. And I found out a way to be part of the community and being part of the nonprofit community, served on a couple of boards, donated a bunch of hours, and a bunch of money helped start a few nonprofits. And then I got stationed overseas in the kingdom of Bahrain. And I was like, how am I supposed to keep doing all this fun nonprofit work? And someone's like, well, you really have that podcast voice. You could probably connect and talk about some of this stuff. And I was like, Ooh, that would be cool. And, look through all the different podcasts that are out there. And there were some great conversations, but when I really didn't find that the top tier show was, was it really a show, like how do you set up a board? How do you raise money? How do you hold events? All these different things that apply to the nonprofit world. So I set out to create the premiere, how to podcasts for nonprofits. And we came up with the nonprofit architect podcast, helping build stronger nonprofits. And I view it as my mission to help health. Carol: Well, I love that, that catchphrase. I was just looking at your website and saw that it helps the helpers, because I've used that phrase myself, that when I'm working with organizations, I like to work with people who are helping other people. And so I'm like many, many lines back in the chain of the helpers. But going back to that Fred Rogers, look, look for the helpers that, that really, When I'm wondering, what, what am I doing here all day? And I, that really helps me come back to center and think, it's, it's contributing to that, that entire ecosystem of folks who are doing all sorts of things to contribute to a better world. taking care of people day to day, all of that, all of the above. So I love that motivation. It certainly rings true for me. Travis: Oh, absolutely. There's so many people out there doing, just going to work, helping their neighbors, helping the environment, helping animals. And if I, I can't help all of them, but if I can help them do what they're doing better, put a little bit more money in their pocket, help them understand their organization a little bit better, get a bit more focused. So they're able to deliver those services more efficiently, more effectively, and with less stress. All in. Carol: Absolutely. Absolutely. So one of the things that in addition to the podcast that you host yourself focusing on, how do you really think that nonprofits themselves should have their own podcasts? Can you, can you tell me a little bit more about that and why, why you think that? Travis: And we can fill up a couple of hours talking about it if you want it to. First off I fell in love with podcasting while I was deployed. It is just such an easy medium to deal with. It's easy to get started. It's free to get started. If you've got a smartphone, you've got all the equipment you need to get started. And even I have production services and all that stuff, but even if you don't use me, like just getting started and falling in love with the process, that's, that's the way to go. Everyone that I talk to, everyone that I interview, everyone that I'm a guest on their show. I get to learn something. And if I'm the host, I get to ask all the cool questions that I want answered when you're in the nonprofit space, there's all these other organizations doing something similar to what you're doing, right. They're helping the same group of people. Maybe they're helping the same type of animals and maybe you're doing it differently. But what it does is. You're promoting the stuff that you're doing in your area, right in your local area. And there's people that are going to be listening and they're going to be like, this is really cool. I want to know how I can contribute. And it might be giving your organization money directly, or it might be connecting with an organization in their area that they didn't know is there. And they can now help out. The same thing that you want to help, maybe not your organization. It helps you build this huge, massive contact list. Every interview that you do, they're also sharing. So you guys are both getting the chance to leverage each other's network, all the audience that you've built, all the audience that they've built, you get to, You lend some of your credibility and some of your audience to them as an organization, and then all the people, because they're going to share the episode, all the people in their sphere of influence, they're going to hear about you. And it's such a fantastic way to grow your audience, to connect, to do better things on the personal. you go to a school, you go to college, you learn life experiences. Maybe you get into reading and maybe you listen to podcasts. Like you're listening to right now and they're going to teach you something. But when you start interviewing people, it's like having your own private masterclass with the experts. I got the opportunity to interview Asha Curran from Giving Tuesday, and learned a ton. Interviewed Alan Stein Jr. From raising your game. He's done leadership work with the late great Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, and he gets to speak about leadership on the show. I got to interview Bob Burg, author of the Go-Giver series. It was just a fantastic man. I love his five principles for stratospheric success. And I got to interview Steve Sims. This is someone that does world-class events for millionaires and billionaires. He hosts, Sir Elton John's. Carpet Oscar party every year. And I asked him, I was like, what's the difference between the way for-profit businesses do events and the way that nonprofit businesses, like I got to ask him personally, instead of having to spend like $30,000 for his coaching, I get to bring them on my show. He gets to leverage my platform and I get to ask him for whatever the heck I wanted to. But if you're in the nonprofit space, And you're trying to get something accomplished, especially if it requires legislation, you can interview every single politician, every city council member, the mayor, the Senator, the Congressman state, and the federal level, the governor, you get to get them on your show on a record, talking about the thing that you both care about. Best part about it is when this comes up in Congress or for a vote or they're getting the committees ready. They're going to say this stuff, who do we know that's an expert, and they're gonna remember being on your show and you're going to get brought into the conversation to have that direct ability to affect the change that you want to see in the world with the people that can make it happen. It's such a fantastic way to leverage and do everything you want to do as a nonprofit, but that's not even the biggest part of this Carol. It's the big difference between a website people go to all the time, day after day, week after week, month after month and a website. Yeah. People only go through one time. The biggest difference between the two is new content. When you look at news, sports, social media, whatever it is, there's new stuff every day. And when you look at the vast majority of non-profit websites, it looks like a digital pain, but this is who we are. This is what we do. Here's our founding story. And that's great. And there's a sure, some donation plugin there so people can give you money, but they've got no reason to come back to your website. Unless you've created new content and reasons for, for doing that. So by adding a podcast or a blog or a blog or a YouTube channel to your page and creating that new content, all of a sudden people are coming to your page for other reasons. And realizing that the thing they care about is the thing that you care about and they can provide money directly to the cause of the thing that they care about. Because they found you through some other method and what a fantastic way to get people into your circle and to create real value for them, the person that large, the potential donor, the potential volunteer is by coming directly to you because of something that you've created. Carol: Yeah, that's awesome. I wanted to follow up on a couple of different things you've talked about there. First is I just totally resonate with the idea that the podcast actually is a learning mechanism because I, when I started mine or even actually way before I started it, because, well, I won't admit how long it took me to get started. But when I first had the idea, I was sitting at a conference and listening to. A number of experts, consultants. Who've been in the field for a long time and were thinking about their legacy. And I thought, oh, wouldn't, I want to follow up with these people having kind of one-on-one informational interviews. And I thought, well, Wouldn't it be cool if I just shared that, if I just had the conversation recorded and then shared it with other people and, and that was the springboard for the, the podcasts that my podcast of yeah, exactly. That I could say, talk to interesting people. I'd be doing that anyway. The difference is I hit record and I work with some of them, do a little bit of editing and add some music and stuff, but beyond that, it's pretty simple. Right. It's what you would do in a virtual coffee anyway. And yet it can be valuable to a whole other group of people. So I love, yeah, so, it could be Just that, that, that instance of learning and continued growth. I think too often folks in organizations think about any content that they're creating a blog post, possibly a pocket. As, just as a way to get their message out, but all of those other benefits of the multiplying networks that you're talking about, the potential for relationship building. Having, as you said, your own private masterclass with really prominent people, all is beneficial. And, and for me, when I was doing my worst case scenario, What if no one listens to this podcast, I still could list all of those things as benefits. And luckily there are plenty of people listening. So thank you to all of them, all the folks who are listening. But I could list all of those benefits from the get-go even if, if my worst fear were to have. Travis: You have nobody listened. Nobody showed up, the really cool part about it is, a lot of organizations have a problem with things like, what am I gonna post on social media? Like, what am I going to, I don't even know what to put out there today. If you do something like an interview show, thank you Carol, for being my guest yesterday. And I'm your guest today. Thank you so much. If Carol asked me 10 questions and I provided 10 answers. That's all the content you need to have a morning in an afternoon post each and every week. Right? So if you interview me, it’s January 6th. I don't know when this is going to be published. Let's just say it's next week. Carol asked me 10 questions, using a program that's free called headliner. And you can take a few minute clips out of there. Her question and my answer. And if you have 10 questions and answers, you have a morning, Monday morning and Monday afternoon, Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning or Wednesday afternoon for the whole week, from just a single conversation, you don't have to figure out what you're going to post. You just have to repurpose what you've created and all of a sudden that workload goes away. If you have a company doing the backend stuff for you, they create them all for you. And they can even schedule them out. So you don't have to even do anything. You just record the episode, you give it to the team and they do all the work. Carol: I think that's another thing that people forget is the number of ways that you can repurpose. One thing that you've created. So you've talked about a lot of the benefits that organizations can see from doing a podcast from, the learning aspect of connecting with other people, networking with other potential partners highlighting all the interesting things. Obviously you can just interview people within, inside your organization and help highlight their expertise. Multiplying networks, having, having people they'll share you share you got to borrow people's audiences are stepping into their audiences and building relationships in that repurposing. What are some of the things that you see gets in the way of folks getting started? Because it might, it might seem intimidating to do a pilot. Travis: It can be. And I'm sure when you started your show, I mean, you feel like there's a thousand things you got to figure out before you surgery. You're like, oh, what am I going to record this thing? When do I have the time? And who's going to do the production, can I do the production? Can I do all these things? What equipment do I need? What do I host it on? Can I change it? What am I going to name it? Like it can be. It can be a lot to be successful in this stuff. The main thing you need to do is say what your show is about and tell people how often you're going to do it. And if you keep the program on target about what it's going to be about, and you publish, when you say you're going to publish that builds credibility and authority and reliability. So I said, I'm going to do a weekly show, and I've done a weekly show each and every week I publish. And people come flocking in. They know that it might be providing the steps they need to be successful. So I've said what I'm going to do. And then I do it, which is great. If you look out there, there's all sorts of different production, quality levels. There's people on their phone on anchor, just chatting for a few minutes and then they call it good. A guy named Russell Brunson. Who's the co-founder of click funnels. Did this as a marketing podcast. He got in his car every morning, recorded on his phone on the way to work at 10. And it got to the parking lot and he hit publish and just let it go. He did this for like 400 episodes. He's gotten millions upon millions upon millions of downloads. No intro music, no outro music, no production quality whatsoever. He had quality conversations with himself and publishing. And allowed him to have this huge platform with millions of downloads. You don't have to get all crazy with it. You can write, you're going to get the Joe Rogan setup and he's got people setting up the sound and he's got the crazy microphone and he's got headphones and mixers and all these things. And they do it in a sound booth and a sound room, and then they take it and they put all this production value into it, make the sound, sound great, and all these things. And you can do that, but you don't have to do that. I didn't start with this fancy microphone. I started with the equipment that I have and started having good conversations and came from it from a curious point of view. And that's all that was needed. To start going to start showing up to have the audience grow and to provide value. It doesn't have to be crazy. People are like, well, we already do so much in the nonprofit. When are we going to have the time? Hey, I get it. But if you have someone dedicated to doing the interview, One day a month in the morning, lunchtime afternoon, evening, they sit down and record all the episodes for the month. They don't have to be crazy. not doing a Joe Rogan three hour long marathon. There's nothing wrong with his show, but some people just don't have the time and I don't blame them. Right. But you can say I'm going to do 10, 15, 20 minute episodes. And if you're going to do an interview, you set them all up on the same day. You do them back to back to back and. Yeah, two hours worth of work, record six interviews, and you've got six weeks worth of material. If you have a team that's doing the production, you give it over to them, they publish it, they edit it and they do all those things. So as long as you have the time to record, which is a two hour block, Sometime during the month, you've got your time set aside. So it's really easy to do. It can be free to start. If you use your cell phone, an anchor, you can buy the equivalent when you decide, you know what? We really like this thing because we want to improve the sound quality. People understand that you might not be the best interviewer when you start. I don't think I was the best interviewer when I started Carol. Were you the best interviewer? Carol: No. I mean, I think that's been one of the, talk about learning from others, but you just, you also get better at this. Right. You get, you get more comfortable. It's not as anxiety producing as it might've been at the beginning. So yeah, you definitely get better and, and right. If there are lots of different options, you can do like the person that you mentioned, you're just doing a solo show short. Some thoughts on your own. You don't have to be interviewing other people. You can mix it up. Right. So, occasionally I'll do a solo episode. I mostly do interviews, but occasionally I'll, I'll throw one of those in a couple, couple of episodes ago. I did a best-of which was an interesting one because I found that it actually took more work than doing a simple interview, but it was a lot of fun too. Travis: Oh, it's there. There's no, there's no rules, right? So you can have these as long or as short as you want them. There's there's people that do flash briefing. On Google or Alexa or Siri or whatever you have that are between two and 10 minutes. It doesn't have to be crazy long. It doesn't have to be all consuming. I posted a solo show on the fifth. That is like three quick tips, three reasons. I think every podcast needs their own website. And it's really quick. I go through the three tips, a program or something that's going to add value to the podcaster. There's three and a half minutes. What would he do? People are like, well, I just don't like the camera, I guess what? I didn't like the camera when I started. I like it now because with the right filters, I look, I mean, I'll look good. Like let's not pretend here. I'm joking. Of course. I don't know. I'm not that high on myself, but you can turn the camera off and just record audio. You can do this in your slippers and housecoat. Nobody cares. I've got a show on the veteran podcast. As a gal who talks about mule, military sexual trauma, and she's still active duty military. So all of her stuff, she's never shown her face. She's getting the word out there, talking about the thing that's important to her, but she's doing it anonymously. Like we don't know who it is. And she's able to do that because of the technology that we have. She interviews her camera and stays off the whole time and she gets the. Content that she needs to put out on episode and she's able to speak her mind and do her things and remain anonymous. You don't have to do video. You can do just audio only and put out great content. And why wouldn't you, but you can do it a couple of ways. You can do it solo. You can do an interview show like Carol's doing, let's be honest. It's probably the best. Like Carol doesn't have to do any work. She just asks a couple of questions. Is that guy in the hot seat or of the guest that does all the work, right? Carol's like, oh, tell me about this. And I talk for 20 minutes and he's like, this is great. Like, I don't have to do any work. You can do a co-hosted show. There's one like diapers and deployments. It's a co-hosted show. Two people, one was active duty, one was a military spouse. Talk about who had it worse. And then they bring on guests for part of the episode. There's people that do panel discussions, where the host is the guy and they asking, five, six people what they think about a certain topic. There's all sorts of different ways to do this. And the best part about. As you can change it. If you don't like the name of your podcast, you can change it in a couple of months. You don't like your podcast, or you can change in a couple of months, get in a fight with your co-host. You can do a solo show. You don't like doing it. Let alone starting the interview show. You can change it however you want to do it. But the whole thing. Is to just start. Most people that do start, they get about 10 episodes in and they're like, I don't have a million downloads yet. A fun fact, no one did. Right. Unless you're doing like… NFTs right now, I saw a guy's show. This was increasing by hundreds of thousands every day. Because of the new hot NFT space, but most people, 99.9999997% are not going to have that return. You have to come through, you have to do it on a regular basis, whether that's daily, weekly, monthly by way. Even if you did one a month, you would still have 12 pieces of content that you created. I recommend a weekly. Because think about Netflix when they binge like people get in, they want to listen to something. And if you produce one piece of content, it takes you 30 days to get your next piece. They're already on to some other show they've already forgotten about you. I definitely recommend at least one a week, but there's so many different ways to do this, but if you wait to make all the decisions or slog through all the possibilities, you'll never start. And if you do start, you want to commit to making 25 episodes. There's something like 2.5 million podcasts that are published right now. But 2.1 million of them haven't produced more than 10 episodes. So the people that are going to come on and be dedicated to the thing like Carol and myself, We're already in the top 20%, just because we have more than 10 episodes. I don't know where you're at in the standings and it doesn't really matter, but like I'm in the top 5% of podcasts in the world and I do a nonprofit show. Our audience just really isn't that big, but because then I'm showing up every week we can bring in week out bringing and providing value, valuable guests. You will be able to hear my show with Carol soon, probably in a few months, I've had a lot stacked up, but. If you do this and you stick with it and you stick to whatever your mission is, like, it's gonna pay off. And it's just so much fun thinking. Am I right Carol? Carol: Yeah, it totally is. I have been having great fun. It's a great way to connect with people and, and yeah, I think that's really important to just have people. Go into it, thinking this is for the long haul. This isn't a short, this is not an easy short return thing. It's a quick thing that builds over time. And I've heard of, I've seen a lot of podcast spaces where they're like, just, just ignore the downloads. Don't even pay any attention to them. Just keep doing your thing, keep showing up. And then as you say, like try not to overcomplicate it. And that could be challenging in the nonprofit sector because it's not usually just one person making a decision. It's many people being involved. But. You know that you can just get started with as, as simple as set up as possible. Not, getting all involved with complicated equipment at the beginning are all good places, just that, what's, what's the what's good enough. Get it out there. Travis: Oh, all this stuff builds over time. Especially if you’ve got a board. Money's tight, completely understood. Go with the free option to start with your phone, whatever earphones you have that have a mic on them and download the Anchor app. There's a couple. I'm not affiliated with Anchor. There's a couple of free apps that have a podcast hosting app that you can do it for free and get. Start creating content for your page and give people a reason to come back to your website over and over and over again. Don't just rely on outbound traffic, outbound, social media, direct mail. Don't just rely on those things. Give them a reason to come find you. Wouldn't you rather have volunteers showing up in your email and donors contacting you than having you have to contact all of them. Find a reason to create content. So they come to you. Carol: So I'd love to finish every episode with a game where I play, where I ask one random icebreaker question that I pulled somewhat randomly out of a box. So I've got three sitting here. What would you say is something that surprises people when they first hear it about. Travis: I mean, if, if it comes up in conversation, the murder attempts are usually pretty high in the list. Like, what did you do that people tried to kill you? It usually comes out. If I'm on video, I've got all this great stuff behind me. People are like, Ooh, what's that? Like, it was this thing. Like, you've got a Rubik's cube over there. Can you sell all of that? I had a guest stop, like in the middle of our thing, make me grab the cube and mix it. I can solve it. Any three by three of your weeks, Q in under a minute. So they're like, I have someone like, I want to see this Kenny be like, I've never seen it done in real life before, I've got my wings up here. I've got my sign that lights up. I've got the kingdom of Bahrain. I've got some awards from the Navy. Like this is from a war hammer from the veteran podcasts awards. All sorts of different things. People like you're so young, you've been in the military. How long have you just turned 40? They're like, holy cow, like I have no idea. Like how long have you been podcasting for this long? Like, have you had any success? I was like, well, four months after starting, I was number four in the U S and they're like, what? Like, I don't know. I don't know what it is about me or my life or what happens, but like, I've dodged death like six or eight times that I can remember that I can directly remember what happened and then not dying, obviously. I've been to all 50 states. I've been to 12 countries. I've got friends all over the world, especially I started meeting a lot of people doing the podcast and game, but if you're listening to this and you want to reach out to me, please do. But like, People in your area, meet him online, meet him for coffee, go meet people who will be so surprised to see all the amazing things that are right in your neck of the woods that you just never know. Because he never asked the question. Carol: Exactly. Exactly. So, what are you excited about? What's coming up for you next? Travis: Oh, let me tell you, let me tell you Carol. I know I told you yesterday cause you're on my show, but like we have created. The ultimate and complete podcast guide, which is available on the website or whatever, but we've taken that thing and we've created a course and you're like, no, there's a bunch of podcasters with courses right now. We are the only course it's being revoked. Even professional podcasters get tongue tied every now and again. We're the only professional podcast group that has created a course that's going to be available at the college level that is being reviewed right now at Forbes business school. At the University of Arizona, you're gonna be able to take my college course and get college. For podcasting here, hopefully within the next like four or five weeks, it will be available online as the only professional podcast, or to have an actual course where you get college credit, which is just really, really, really amazing. anyone that's in business communications, journalism, marketing, entrepreneurship, the possibilities are endless, and you have the ability to get college credit from a podcast course. Come on. Who wouldn't take that? And why wouldn't you? That's exciting. And my official Navy retirement is March 1st, so I'm less than two months from retiring after a career of over 21 years. Carol: Congratulations. And I think yeah, I am also stacked up with interviews, so this probably will be coming out just about that time. You'll be officially retired when this is published. So thank you. Thank you so much. It was great having this conversation and I hope. This inspires a couple of new non-profit related organizations to get into the podcast and game and, and share their wisdom, share their, their networks and get connected with people. So thank you so much. Travis: Hey, thanks, Carol. And anyone listening hop on over to nonprofit architect.org. There's a tab in there. That's got all my stuff, but we also have the non-profit podcast network. We've got 15 shows: my show and Carol’s show, and a bunch of other shows that talk through all the things that go on in the nonprofit world and nonprofit game. Maybe you like my show, maybe you don't, but you're going to find something that you do like that does resonate with you at nonprofitarchitect.org. Thank you so much again, and thank you, Carol, for having me on. Thank you. Carol: Thank you. I am taking away several things from our conversation. The first is the versatility of the podcasting medium and the hidden benefits – I have certainly experienced what Travis talked about in terms of giving me a way to access many people, their expertise and perspective. I learn so much from each guest and each conversation. And he also makes a good point – that you don’t have to make it complicated to start. You can start with a smartphone. You also learn as you go and get better at interviewing, at spotting an interesting quote to pull out. One thing to remember with this particular marketing channel – it is a slow burn and takes a while to build an audience. It’s a long game, not a quick win. Thank you for listening to this episode. I really appreciate the time you spend with me and my guests. You can find out how to connect with Travis, their background and bio, the full transcript of our conversation, as well as any links and resources mentioned during the show in the show notes at missionimpactpodcast.com/shownotes. I want to thank Isabelle Strauss-Riggs for her support in editing and production as well as April Koester of 100 Ninjas for her production support. We want to hear from you! Take a minute to give us feedback or ask a question at missionimpactpodcast.com/feedback. Until next time! |
carol HamiltonMy passion is helping nonprofit organizations and associations have a greater mission impact. Archives
April 2022
Categories
All
Grace Social Sector Consulting, LLC, owns the copyright in and to all content in and transcripts of the Mission: Impact podcast, as well as the Mission: Impact blog with all rights reserved, including right of publicity.
|
RSS Feed
Telephone301-857-9335
|
info[at]gracesocialsector.com
|
Grace Social Sector Consulting, LLC, owns the copyright in and to all content in, including transcripts and audio of the Mission: Impact podcast and all content on this website, with all rights reserved, including right of publicity.
|